OFFICIAL BOOK TWELVE DICUSSION THREAD.

[jman]

Yep, that's the one.

[alik]

Couple of things that I got...

Poppycock is a Dutch word.
Efcharisto is Greek

The guy with the mother was in the carniverous carnival.

[Antenora]

I think "poppycock" literally means "soft dung".

And there was someone in TCC who had his mother with him; I also get the general impression that many of our random crowd members in TPP have been seen in earlier books.

[Snicket89]

Most likely. And as I recall...as Snicket was naming the people with the evidence he told us that a few of their voices sounded familiar to the Baud's but they couldn't quite make out who they were.

[sunsun]

You probably realized this already, but you know in LS Unauthorized Biography there is quite a bit about a code where after you say "ring", count ten words after the first word and you get a coded message. I just started the book, and when Frank or Ernest is lecturing the Baudelaires after the bell first rings, he speaks in code and says, "I can't tell if you are associates or enemies please respond." on page 67. If this happens later in the story, try to decipher the code.

[karol1096]

y is no one intrugued by my point...as dante said in his post using the quote OLAF did start the schism so how can it make sense

[PJ]

ffwf said:

philipjucker said:

No it doesn't.

I am not really a detective, my friend. I am a member of an organization that requires its members to pretend to be various occupations, including detective, ship captain, dramatic critic, duchess, waiter, and many others. For years this organization has behaved in ways that were as noble as they were secret, but recently this organization has experienced a schism, a word which here means "a member suddenly behaving in a greedy and violent manner and thus dividing the organization into two arguing groups." The member I am speaking of-I will just call him O, though currently he prefers S-has recently done a great deal of vicious, unfair, and impolite acts that I shudder to describe.

Whaaaaat!
How does that make sense? At all?!?
Jacques was four years old when the schism started!
This leaves only three possibilities, sadly:

1) Neither Lemony, nor Kit, nor Jacques attended the VFD Meeting Transcript, which is very, very, very unlikely, as there is a D who represents and L, and a J who knew L before they were recruited. So unless there is another L who has an representitive called D and a brother called J, they where at the meeting, and they were certainly not four years old at the time.

2) The O Jacques mentions is not, in fact, Olaf, but some other villain. This is the most likely scenario.

3) Olaf caused the schism and somehow managed to blame someone else, as the conversation in the meeting indicates that Olaf wasn't bad before he issued his demands; i.e they didn't suspect him.

[jman]

Actualy sunsun, the book was misprinted and it says "in" instead of "associates".

[Jacques the Environmentalist]

Yes, we did notice the Sebald Code.

Who says Jacques and Kit were identical ages? In my family my brother is 12 years younger than me, you can't prove that Kit and Jacques were BOTH 4 during the schism's outbreak. Yes the timing is confusing, I've had to think about too many different contrasting scenarios and I still haven't figured it out... I know the possiblity of them being twins is considered but is it absolute?
The other scenario is that Jacques was saying 'recent' as in the organizations history, it could've been hundreds of years old so 16 years might not have been much in that kind of reckoning.

[ineedyourhelp]

To go along with the subject of Lemony following the Baudelaires, I forget what page, but in TAA wasnt he behind the wall when the Quags got taken away? I might be mistaken as I havent read the book for quite some time. I think that Lemony is right behind the Bauds all the time, taking notes, and the books are published later, where he ads in his little tidbits. Another thing, in LSUA, one of the books the Mrs. K was assigning students to read before she dragged away to students by their ankles, was ASOUE by Lemony Snicket. So this could mean the books were published during the Bauds time and if Mrs. K is Kit, then she knows about the books.

[Jacques the Environmentalist]

No he wasn't there, he described the entire academy as being completely empy and dark in his time after Mr. Remora choked on a banana and retired and Mrs. Bass was arrested for bank roberry(dude, the police got something right...). And in thh he said that all that was there in his time was a weed-overgrown pile of ash.

[ineedyourhelp]

Ahh, ok.

The taxi that was following the Bauds and Kit in chapter one, was Justice Strauss in it or Lemony, or was Lemony driving?

[Dear Dairy]

1) Neither Lemony, nor Kit, nor Jacques attended the VFD Meeting Transcript, which is very, very, very unlikely, as there is a D who represents and L, and a J who knew L before they were recruited. So unless there is another L who has an representitive called D and a brother called J, they where at the meeting, and they were certainly not four years old at the time.

I suppose Jacques could have been four years old - one of the Rs was nine years old. (p. 38 LSUA). It seems unlikely, but LS has made it pretty clear that some children were involved in leadership roles.

[LBeall]

Well, I have finally finished the book as of Sunday morning, I didn't get a copy until late Saturday.
Anyway, I will reiterate that this was one of the most ( if not the most) brilliant books in the series. I was absolutely stunned when I finished.
Thanks to whomever actually deciphered the code, I was much to lazy. (and had many people waiting for the book...) I suppose I also assumed that, like so many times before, there was nothing of interest there.
So many interesting theories! As for the taxi man, I don't think it is Snicket. It seems easy to come to that conclusion, but I don't think anything in this series will ever be that straightforward.
So, there are my meager thoughts on the matter. Glad to be back!

[redlightgrnlight]

I haven't had time to read everything, but I've read a good deal from this post. This is the most active and intelligent board I've found, so pardon me for jumping in. I have three observations, for now, and I look forward to more participation. I'll try to read everything closely soon, so forgive me if I repeat stuff!

First, I don't believe that any of the characters on the front cover are meant to be identifiable. I don't believe that Kit is on the cover, and I think the Wiki entry is plain wrong on that point. Kit was wearing a dark coat, and the woman in that picture is wearing a blue-and-gold coat. Kit was wearing pencils, but the items in the woman's hair have neither lead nor erasers sticking out. Instead, the woman looks like she's wearing a traditional Asian outfit, with appropriate headgear. Kit's pencils were sticking out at odd angles, but those sticks are neatly pressed, and include a comb, which was not mentioned by Snicket. There are no "lines of worry" on her brow. The woman's hair is short and well-kept, while Kit's is long and messy. There's no mention of her glasses, which is an important detail Snicket would have mentioned, and which would have affected her tears. I believe it's just meant to be a random hotel guest. I think people saw two sticks in a woman'a hair, assumed it was Kit, and took it from there. It's not that easy. The sticks are slightly pointed, just like traditional Asian sticks for hair are, not flat like unsharpened pencils. Helquist wouldn't suddenly break form in Book 12 and illustrate a non-event. Also, it doesn't make sense to illustrate Kit in a fashion that's not very plausible. She never goes into the hotel with the Bauds present. She's too disheveled and preoccupied to be concerned with her appearance at this time. I don't think it has to be anyone in particular. It'd be especially silly to try to identify this one sole figure when the rest of the individuals are almost certainly unknowable. I think that, just like the crowds of nameless figures on the covers of TAA and TCC, the figures on the cover of TPP just represent the guests in attendance at the Hotel. The visual effect for the cover is to show that (a) the Hotel is crowded and busy, and (b) the Bauds are in the middle of things. If all the patrons were merely in the background, it wouldn't convey either sense. This picture, though, emphasizes the general confusion of the Bauds in trying to figure out who's volunteer or villain, and how to proceed as concierges and flaneurs. The pictures are detailed, but they're not particularly referring to any character. None of the characters drawn are detailed anywhere in the book, and it's all sheer guessing to assume that this character is X and this one is Y.

Second, TGG p. 222 - Fernald says, "Just as the poison of a deadly fungus can be the source of some wonderful medicines, someone like Jacques Snicket can do something villainous, and someone like Count Olaf can do something noble. Even your parents--" He's then interrupted by Fiona. That foreshadowed the potential evil of the parents in the poison dart episode. Does it foreshadow a use for the Medusoid Mycelium, or a noble deed from Olaf?

Third, TGG p. 178 - "And a small, ceramic bowl, with a tight-fitting lid to keep something important inside, might be difficult to find in a laundry room of an enormous hotel, particularly if there were a terrible villain nearby, making you feel nervous and distracted." Did Dewey lie, and the sugar bowl was in the laundry room, and Lemony retrived it before Klaus opened the door, and it wasn't in the taxi seat? That may be a stretch, but it's possible.