Sin

[hanzo]

Most of you post in the ending theories that the Baudelaires will become evil. That was the subject from book 12, that can't happen again...
If you didn't understand me, here's the explanation:
The last books, all of them, have a theme to be explained with the story... for example, all the eleventh book actions were divided in three parts, like the Water Cycle.
The theme from 12th book was WHO IS EVIL AND WHO IS NOT? So in my opinion, the 13th book won't have anyone becoming good or evil... The book will be about sins!
It's easy to realise that, look at the box of The Complete Wreck, the fruits on the 13th book cover...

I don't know... What you think?

[Linda Rhaldeen]

Aren't the concepts of sin and good and evil very closely connected, though? You can't really have one without the other.

[hanzo]

That's not true
And I think that in these last books, there's not more a evil and good. It's all about survival!

[Antenora]

I guess a theme of the last few books is that it's necessary to do some morally wrong things in order to survive, particularly when trying to defeat evil people. And I imagine that a major theme of The End will be the parallels between Olaf and the Baudelaires-- recently we've seen the latter becoming more villainous, and it's been shown that the former is an orphan, and of course they've both burned things down. Even if the Baudelaires have already been shown to be villainous, The End will most likely elaborate on that theme.

[egad]

really, the speculation of them becoming evil started in the 8th or 9th book, right? Yes, i think they were thinking that they might be becoming more evil when they tricked hal with the fake keys. think that it shows that when they don't have gaurdians anymore and are living by themselves, they are becoming more and more unstable because they have legal gaurdians up to books 8

[Brownie]

Le sin thing is odd. Can someone lock this thread? It's been discussed before.

[Dante]

The Baudelaires' descent into criminality did start way back in THH, yes (although originally I thought it would be done with in TSS, when they decided not to fight fire with fire). Although they did steal a sailboat in TWW with Snicket commenting that it was a crime. In what sense do you mean "sin"? Do you think the last book will be about the nature of evil, or religious and philosophical perspectives on their actions? Do you think they'll learn the difference between good and evil, or learn that they don't exist? Please elaborate.

[Brownie]

I hope Vi becomes evil, if anything.

[Hooky]

It would be a "sad" ending for Lemony if the Baudelaires became evil and started burning buildings down (or something like that), because then there would be three less noble people in the world.

[Sugary Snicket]

Exactly. He said the ending would be bittersweet.

But then again, he DID say that it would either be happy or sad, depending on how you look at it.... Hmmm.....

I personally hope not. That would seem cheap. And in my opinion, it would not make for a good ending.

[Dante]

Let's try not to stray into Possible Traitors or Best/Worst Possible Endings territory here (although I can see how you'd stumble onto that road). I'm still wondering what precisely hanzo was thinking of when he spoke of sins. Hm, it might be interesting if the actions of some of the characters were based entirely on one (each) of the seven sins, although lust might be a hard one to handle in a children's book (although Garth Nix is also going to have a stab at it, it seems).

[Brownie]

What Garth Nix book?

Count Olaf could have lust for Violet...

[Sixteen]

prewrite said:

What Garth Nix book?

The Keys To The Kingdom.

On the topic of Sins, I originally thought that Olaf was a different sin in each book. Of course, I know that's wrong now. But I had thought that Greed was TBB, Wrath was TRR, Pride was TWW, and that's when I realised I was completely out there.

[Dante]

volunteer16 said:

On the topic of Sins, I originally thought that Olaf was a different sin in each book. Of course, I know that's wrong now. But I had thought that Greed was TBB, Wrath was TRR, Pride was TWW, and that's when I realised I was completely out there.

...Actually, that would have been a pretty cool theory. It's almost a pity that it didn't work out (the running number of 13s just doesn't really fit with it). I think I might have heard somebody try to do something like that before, with the characters. Olaf plus the main five troupe members plus Esmé makes a nice round number, and you could probably attach a good sin to most of them. Although now Fernald's the only one left, so it doesn't really work for B13 either.

[Jacques the Environmentalist]

Hm. Sins. Well we could have the Baudelaires starving and stealing fruit from the island, that could be one.
I mean, we've already seen sins in the series. Most notably with Olaf but also the baudelaires who (inadvertently) killed Dewey and (purposely) burnt down the Hotel Denouement even if it was to spare people from the mycelium.
They've also stolen:
keys, esme though they returned her, toboggan, ship in tcc...
And they broke all those rules in VFD however ridiculous.
So, yeah, I guess I'm wondering what hanzo's got in mind.