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Post by Libitina on Aug 22, 2006 12:52:30 GMT -5
Sorry if this has been brought up before; I don't remember seeing anything about it.
I'm beginning to doubt that Hotel Denouement is really the last safe place. Perhaps it is a code name of sorts--I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think it is the last safe place.
-For one thing, Ernest, described as being rather evil (so we can assume he's on the other side of the schism), is a manager of the hotel. It would be quite easy for him to discover that it was the other side's last safe place and pass along that information.
-Also (although this is not as certain), the Snicket/Baudelaire/Quagmire etc. side of V.F.D. would probably know if their last safe place was discovered. Therefore, they wouldn't hold a presumably secret meeting there. Perhaps they actually needed the other side of V.F.D. to come to the meeting as part of a plan (involving the sugar bowl?), and therefore tricked them into thinking they were clever by coming.
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Antenora
Detriment Deleter 
Fiendish Philologist
Put down that harpoon gun, in the name of these wonderful birds!
Posts: 15,891 
Likes: 113
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Post by Antenora on Aug 22, 2006 17:27:54 GMT -5
It does seem odd that VFD would use a relatively conspicuous(and public) hotel for their last safe place, but Dewey notes that the Hotel--the above-ground one that everyone sees-- isn't the real last safe place.
"Volunteers and villains alike know that the last safe place is the Hotel Denouement, but no one has ever questioned why the sign is written backwards. They're staying at the TNEMEUONED LETOH, while the real last safe place, the catalog, is hidden safely at the bottom of the pond". (page 185)
I imagine that Frank and Ernest came to a sort of consensus and decided to run the hotel(or Letoh) together, in order to make a living. Also, it's quite possible that the volunteers had intended to bring the villains to the Hotel so they could be easily rounded up and imprisoned after their trial; Justice Strauss is aware of the villains being around but doesn't seem terribly worried, as if there's a plan all prepared. Dewey also mentions this:
"On Thursday, Justice Strauss and the other judges of the High Court will hear from each and every one of our volunteers. Count Olaf, Esme Squalor, and all of the other villainous people gathered here will finally be brought to justice". (200)
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Post by Jacques the Environmentalist on Aug 23, 2006 20:47:34 GMT -5
A conspicuous and public place would actually make sense for a last safe place though, if your business was conducted discreetly and you just blended in with everyone else.
VFD tried secret headquarters and they were all found out/burnt down whereas with the hotel people can find it but it may take them awhile to pinpoint you and they'll hesitate to attack a building full of other people, if only for fear that the police will be roused by the burning of such a massive building.
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Post by Grace on Sept 6, 2006 12:36:02 GMT -5
The Hotel Denouement wasn't the REAL last safe place, I doubt VFD would make such a flammable last safe place, which is why underneath the pond was the LAST safe place. So no, it's not the real last safe place.
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Post by Libitina on Sept 7, 2006 16:15:58 GMT -5
Yeah, I remember that after I posted...My point was that I'm curious as to whether it was really a safe place at all, or just part of a plan to attract the other side of the schism
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Post by Dante on Sept 8, 2006 10:24:13 GMT -5
I don't believe we actually know when Ernest turned against V.F.D. - for all we know, it could have been an hour before Kit came to pick up the Baudelaires. For another thing, in the case of the planned meeting of V.F.D. at Hotel Denouement, it didn't matter if loads of villains were there, and indeed that was seen as being ideal, because part of the purpose of the meeting was to gather all the evidence together and put all the villainous people on trial. And V.F.D.'s had loads of safe places, and not all of them have been secret mountain headquarters - they've had caves and laboratories as well, as Kit mentions, and these locations can't filter villains out, because it's either hard for anyone to get there or easy for anyone to get there, so it doesn't really discriminate. The Hotel Denouement wasn't built to be the last safe place, it just ended up being the only one left, and presumably one that few people knew was a safe place, given that the sinister duo, Olaf, and Esmé only found out that it was the last safe place from reading the Snicket File (I presume they spread the word among other villains, or the other villains were able to find out from their own research).
It's hard to judge what makes the last safe place no longer safe - if it was simply that nobody knew about it, then Hotel Denouement would have had to have been abandoned before Kit even met the Baudelaires, because all the villains were already converging on it. Does it really matter that lots of villains are staying there, indeed that one of them is helping run it, if it's part of the plan that villains are to be there, or that the villains aren't immediately endangering the hotel and its occupants?
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zkomes
Bewildered Beginner
The End is here (not near)
Posts: 7
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Post by zkomes on Nov 14, 2006 20:30:09 GMT -5
I dont think it was really a safe place to begin with, but I guess it seems like it is.
Too bad it ended up in flames
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Post by Skeleton Key on Nov 15, 2006 1:31:18 GMT -5
I always just sort of assumed that the Tnemeuoned Letoh was built generations ago, and that Ernest sort of didn't turn out right but was allowed/forced to be a manager. (He probably bit people's sides when he was a baby, that's a dead giveaway.) But now that you've brought it up, something different probably happened.
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Post by Libitina on Nov 15, 2006 17:25:37 GMT -5
That sounds likely, Gretchen. And poor Ernest!
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Post by Semesther, the Dolphin Vampire on Nov 15, 2006 22:42:58 GMT -5
Why?
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U T O P I A
Catastrophic Captain
And in the icy silence of the tomb, so haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights.
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Post by U T O P I A on Nov 16, 2006 13:23:18 GMT -5
[TE SPOILERS]
Could one not regard the Island featured in TE as the last safe place, especially as everyone there wanted to keep everything threatening away?
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Post by beatriceblake on Nov 16, 2006 19:37:27 GMT -5
I don't think there were any safe places. Conflict always crept in when there were more than a few people in a place. The island wasn't really safe because as the history book suggests there were periodic mutinies and schisms.
The reversed Hotel Denouement in the pond was safe in that no one really knew about it besides Dewey and the Bauds and presuambly no one was there.
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Post by Jacques the Environmentalist on Dec 1, 2006 22:53:24 GMT -5
Olaf said in TE that no place is safe, and I'm actually agreeing with him there. And as beatriceblake said, the only reason the underwater place was safe is that no one was down there. If people had come down there undoubtedly villains would have found out about it and done harm even if they couldn't torcht he place.
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Post by EyeAndInsignia on Apr 5, 2008 12:52:43 GMT -5
I may be wrong, but I always assumed that the last safe place was around the pond Dewey fell into. The pond's reflection did read 'Hotel Denouement.' And, If I remember correctly, there was a hidden library down there or something. I think that was the last 'Safe Place.' Although, It wasn't all that safe because Dewey fell into that lake with a harpoon in his heart,
SCR
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Post by Jacob on Apr 13, 2008 22:15:37 GMT -5
I believe it was. Unless the island was...
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