"The End": Cover on New York Times Book Review

[Antenora]

That tracing makes the thing in the background, to the right of Olaf's foot, look more like a wheel. I'm still not sure what's above it, though. I'm assuming just some generic shipwreck debris, planks and scraps of wood.

Also, could you please stop typing in all capital letters? It's kind of annoying, like you're yelling at people in every post.

[Eye Of The Count]

Oh, sorry! Didn't know. Yes it does look like a wheel. It just might be debris from a ship. Maybe the ship Olaf and the Baudelaires were riding on crashed?

Edit: It looks like there is a snake in the back ground!

[Dante]

That resembles a broken plank of wood rather more than it does a snake, I think. Also, your suggestion that the ship was wrecked has been suggested a few times already, and reinforced by recent information with regards to The Tragic Treasury (look in Putrid Products for more information on that). Perhaps, if you haven't already, you could make sure you've read all the most recently-posted-in threads all through, or at least to within five to ten pages, to make sure you have a good grasp on everything that we've learnt and deduced?

[Jacques the Environmentalist]

Hm. I didn't think of those as snake cages but it is entirely possible. Perhaps the IDV's cage since we know that's definitely been mentioned?
I'm running out of things about the cover to talk about...

[Eye Of The Count]

Well, we won't ever know about the cover unless, someone gets an advance copy, reads it, and tells us what the cover is about. Or maybe there will be a website [lile the nameless novel .com].Otherwise, we may never know!

[The World Is Quiet Here]

I wouldn't like to keep a snake in a cage like that unless it was the IDV *shudders* but it's definitely too small for that.
Personally I subscribe to the random shipwreck debris theory

Maybe the cage is for carrier pigeons

[Jacques the Environmentalist]

Or perhaps a crow?
Well we'll know about the cover when we get the book so I wouldn't say never...

[The World Is Quiet Here]

Hey I just realised something (I don't think anyone has mentioned this before)<this only relates to US versions> TBB and TE are the only two books to feature the Bauds and Olaf and only them.

ALSO there is a reverse, in TBB Olaf is in a position of dominance towering above the Bauds, But in TE the Bauds, though looking miseerable, are in a position of dominance over Olaf.

PLUS in TBB they were forced to go with Olaf in TPP they had control over whether they went/escaped with him or not!

[Dante]

I think the same thing applies with the covers of the Egmont editions - I can only recall both Olaf and the Baudelaires being on TBB, although there's no Egmont cover for The End yet, and on TBB Olaf was huge and in a position of great prominence. That's an interesting parallel, and it'll be interesting to see if it continues on the Egmont cover for the book. I hope it's intended rather than coincidental. I think with the narratives at least there is meant to be a measure of similar but different situations and choices between the beginning and the end, although we'll only really see how far that extends when the book comes out, but Helquist may have picked up on that in The End - I presume he's read it to have done the cover art, although some of the costume discrepancies in other pictures do raise that question - and extended it to his artwork.

Edit: Although I don't think we've ever been sure how much independence or co-operation there is between Handler, Helquist, and other people involved with aSoUE when it comes to the artwork. Somebody should really ask them sometime.