The End: AuthorTrackers & Shocking Secrets

[Dante]

Depends on their definition of "finished," I guess. It might still need editing, which could take a bunch more drafts and time for meetings and editing and stuff, I guess. Then Helquist needs to do the illustrations and they all need to settle on those and the cover design. Then they need to actually print 'em off, send 'em off to bookstores... The time stacks up. And all the people involved need to have regular lives as well. I suspect there's probably some sort of delay and they could publish it a little earlier, but it'd probably come out around that month, and since there's another cool Friday 13th hanging around, why not? I expect they'd normally delay until some kind of optimum publication date, too - there are probably dates when people are more or less likely to buy books, and I expect publishers and authors do all they can to grab what little extra cash is available. Plus, a large number of buys on the publication date looks impressive. Oh, and TBL needs to come out, too, and it seems that's going to have lots of tricky extras with it (e.g. a poster).*

*Dante knows nothing of the editing and publishing business and this is merely his approximation. Dante takes no responsibility for being wrong.

Edit: June 6th is the sinister 06/06/06, which would also be somewhat appropriate, and was suggested by an alleged insider a while back.

[1fanbaudelaire]

That makes perfectly good sense. Thanks Dante.

[Deleted]

ffwf said:

Depends on their definition of "finished," I guess. It might still need editing, which could take a bunch more drafts and time for meetings and editing and stuff, I guess. Then Helquist needs to do the illustrations and they all need to settle on those and the cover design. Then they need to actually print 'em off, send 'em off to bookstores... The time stacks up. And all the people involved need to have regular lives as well. I suspect there's probably some sort of delay and they could publish it a little earlier, but it'd probably come out around that month, and since there's another cool Friday 13th hanging around, why not? I expect they'd normally delay until some kind of optimum publication date, too - there are probably dates when people are more or less likely to buy books, and I expect publishers and authors do all they can to grab what little extra cash is available. Plus, a large number of buys on the publication date looks impressive. Oh, and TBL needs to come out, too, and it seems that's going to have lots of tricky extras with it (e.g. a poster).*

*Dante knows nothing of the editing and publishing business and this is merely his approximation. Dante takes no responsibility for being wrong.

Edit: June 6th is the sinister 06/06/06, which would also be somewhat appropriate, and was suggested by an alleged insider a while back.

Thats when The Omen remake comes out. but any way good explination

[Alfred is Present]

I think Oct 13 is better than 06/06/06. 06/06/06 merely sounds like the devil.

[Dante]

alfredbenedict said:

I think Oct 13 is better than 06/06/06. 06/06/06 merely sounds like the devil.

I agree. ASoUE is more about misfortune than Satanism.

[1fanbaudelaire]

ffwf said:

I agree. ASoUE is more about misfortune than Satanism.

Totally, Satanism is evil not unfortunate.

[Alfred is Present]

Yah. Like, unfortunate is more like black cats, ladders, mirrors, and all that stuff.
I mean, Snicket won't say: 'If you buy this book, Satan will haunt you... Boo!'

[SnicketFires]

Satanism played a part in The Basic Eight.

I'm not sure why that's important here.

[Ernest D]

alfredbenedict said:

Yah. Like, unfortunate is more like black cats, ladders, mirrors, and all that stuff.
I mean, Snicket won't say: 'If you buy this book, Satan will haunt you... Boo!'

No. He'd just imply the reader might trip over a conveniently placed footstool and fall into a bit of snarling carnivorous jackals to be torn to shreds and left to bleed to death in eternal agony. But Satan? No.

[Dear Dairy]

WOW. I missed quite a lot while I was away. However, I actually read this entire thread, and its predecessor. What a good girl!

I was wondering for quite some time why no one mentioned the omission of the Snickets from the chart of SUSPICIOUS characters (Lord Vader X finally did). This omission may have some serious implications. First, if Lemony is not who we think he is (Secret #1), then perhaps he is not a Snicket at all, but an impostor or person in disguise. Second, if Lemony is a Snicket sib, perhaps he sees all others involved in these events as Suspicious, while he and his siblings are completely noble, innocent, and upstanding individuals - which is suspicious in itself. Even the Baud kids and their parents are depicted as capable of heinous actions. Yes, you have pointed out that the Baud parents and Beatrice are also not on the chart - however, they are not Major Players in this series of events, in the sense that they do not appear as actual characters in these books, whereas the Snicket sibs do (at least, Jacques and Kit do). So why are the Snickets not on the chart? There is more here to be discussed.

In regard to Secrets #5 and #6, I have an idea that connects with some already proposed. Lemony grew up with a terrible villain - Olaf - at school, whether Prufrock or some other boarding school or even VFD school, and the Sinister Duo were teachers there. This would account for Olaf's fear of them, as well as Lemony's own apparent fear because he seems unable to bring himself to describe or discuss much about them.

[Dante]

I do wonder if my cynicism and ability to so easily dismiss the Suspicious Characters chart as the flawed work of the publishers, or random nonsense just intended to draw us in, might not be so helpful as I like to think. But it certainly does clear up a lot of points.

However, as you point out, it is interesting to note that the Snicket siblings aren't on there. Lemony seems to have no specific connection to any character, but an overall link to everyone because he's watched all these people - then again, we know of certain people he was actually a friend or associate of, such as Captain Widdershins (he worked on the Queequeg for a time) and Olivia (he and Jacques stayed at Caligari Carnival at one point). Jacques knew Hector and Jerome, the U.A. seems to say, but we can't be so sure of Lemony, or of any connection he might have had to Esmé through Beatrice. But it's as though those connections aren't relevant now, they belong to the past. Maybe that's why they aren't marked on. Jacques and Kit could be directly linked to quite a few characters, though, and it is odd that they aren't on. Maybe Lemony trusts his siblings too much, or just enough, or maybe he wants the Snicket family left out of these unfortunate events - that their story was long ago, and that any effects of it now are merely incidental. And that seemed true to start with, but now the stories of the Snickets and the Baudelaires are colliding. So perhaps it's that Lemony doesn't know the whole truth about some of these characters, but he suspects things of them - whereas he knows everything about his siblings, good and bad (although if there's bad, he apparently chooses not to say, perhaps believing that it's not relevant - it still isn't the Snicket story, after all, it's primarily the Baudelaires' story).

As for your theory on the sinister duo working at Prufrock Prep. - I've got nothing to add, but they must have been substantially younger, since Kit and Dewey were able to interview the math teacher of the woman with hair but no beard, who by now would be extremely old, since they can't exactly be spring chickens. I'd comment on how it's odd that they might once have been teachers when they have such a different job now, but people in aSoUE seem able to switch jobs without much trouble - and this would have been long ago. Also interesting is that Kit and Dewey also refer to the sinister duo by their beard-and-hair description, suggesting that they're either similarly frightened, or that the sinister duo's names are too dangerous to say, or that those names have been lost to time.

Edit: Alternatively, looking at my theory here that the Suspicious Characters chart is the chart in Jerome's history of injustice (sans paragraph of notation), then perhaps Jerome drew this charat to link people who are connected by different types of injustice, but he hasn't been able to find information on the Snickets or the Baudelaire parents. I imagine the Snicket/Baudelaire file would be vital to understanding those five, but Olaf's apparently had it since TSS. But, as I asid, the lines could be different kinds of injustice. A dashed line could mean "ran away from home" or "was taken away from home" or something of that nature - that actually fits for a few individuals, although naturally, not others. Solid lines could mean "was let down by" or "betrayed by" depending on the circumstances. I'm just hypothesising here, I'm not saying there's absolute merit to all of these, as some of them plainly don't work, or overlap.

[joker]

I have just a few questions that anybody is welcome to answer or discuss:
1. Do you find it strnge on Suspicious Character's cahrt- Poe is conected to Sir? I find it very very strange, and I think this has been discussed before.
2. Cap'n Widdershins is connected to Hal. In my opinion, they're brothers. They're both old and both have some part to do with V.F.D.
3. It is rather odd that Ernesrt is connected to WWHBNB. They're either- dating (unlikely) or ernest is hired by some reason by them. But what about MWBBNH? Where is he related to Ernest if Ernesty was hired by them?

[Antenora]

In regards to your questions:
1. The line between Sir and Poe could indicate that they were last seen together, at the TPP trial. As mentioned before, I think some of the lines are rather arbitrary, and each line style might not have a consistent meaning.

2. Widdershins could be Hal's brother, possibly, though we're not sure how close they are in age. Therefore, Widdershins could be G or I on the UA family tree, though that's a matter for another thread.

3. As I believe was mentioned before, I think some of the lines work in chains--Ernest's connection to the Woman with Hair shows his connection to the evil side of VFD in general, as the WWHBNB is connected in turn to people we know are on that side.

Dante's idea about the lines signifying injustice and kidnapping is quite interesting. Hector's unconnected line, for instance,could represent his attempts at running away.

[Dante]

joker said:

1. Do you find it strnge on Suspicious Character's cahrt- Poe is conected to Sir? I find it very very strange, and I think this has been discussed before.

I agree, it is very strange, and is one of the apparently random lines which I generally use to justify my belief that the chart is just nonsense.

2. Cap'n Widdershins is connected to Hal. In my opinion, they're brothers. They're both old and both have some part to do with V.F.D.

See above. If there is a connection, I don't think they're brothers, though. Hal is described as being incredibly old - one of the oldest men the Baudelaires had ever met - whereas Snicket describes neither how old Widdershins looks, or even his hair colour, just that he's enormous and had a long moustache curled up at the end. His blustery personality makes me think 40s or early 50s, though, but if Hal's so very old, he could even be the father of Widdershins.

3. It is rather odd that Ernesrt is connected to WWHBNB. They're either- dating (unlikely) or ernest is hired by some reason by them. But what about MWBBNH? Where is he related to Ernest if Ernesty was hired by them?

I think that the lines pointing to some people who are themselves linked together shows that they're linked as a group - to provide a clarifying example, if you go exactly be the lines, Sunny isn't linked to Monty and Josephine's not linked to Violet, but I think the line goes right through the Baudelaires and links them all, and so Ernest's line links him to both of the sinister duo. Alternatively, the woman with hair but no beard could be somebody he particularly admires, or was the first villain he met, or some other arbitrary, unknowable thing from the past. Although it is odd, since the sinister duo are practically one character - they operate as one unit and we never see them apart.

[joker]

Yes, true.