The End: Official Discussion

[orphansrgreat]

I hated the book mainly because the Quagmires were gotten rid of.

Olaf I LOVED olaf but him and Kit WTF?? What is that about?

Then theres the island soooo boring god I nearly died of boredum!!

The baby part with Kit dying was so very sad.

Chapter fourteen. WE know they crashed the boat but did they baby survive???!! Please say it did!

So who else hated it? I just sorry I hated it I guess too many fics were read. . . *cries loudly*

[superorange]

Yet again, I highly doubt the boat crashed on that particular time. Remember, BB2 remembers an awful lot of things about The Baudelaires.

[beatriceblake]

The only problem is that this debate keeps going around in circles. We know they crashed the boat from the poster in TBL but we know from the letters in TBL that Beatrice has lots of memories of the Baudelaires but we know from Sunny that infants in ASoUE can remember things that happened when they were weeks old etc etc..

So who else hated it?

I didn't hate The End but I thought TBL was a waste of time. All it did was spoil the ending of The End by making it fairly easy to guess that Beatrice was the Baudelaires' mother.

[cyrus]

snicketfilepg13 said:

I have several questions which were unanswered.

• What is the "?"
  
• Who is the JS in the TPP?
  
• Olaf and Kit?!?!?
  
• What is the sugar bowl?
  
• "By the way, if it is a girl we will name her Violet, and if it is a boy we will name him Lemony. - Page 2, Chapter Fourteen. Does that mean Lemony died going along with tradition of naming a dead person, or A Lemony?
  
• Did the Baudelaires perish when they left the island? Is it connected to TBL and that poster?
  

I'm happy though, I understand the situation about the ring.

Love "Book the Thirteenth" and then "Book the Last" entitled Chapter Fourteen. xD

"?", I think, is a "Man with a beard but no hair" and "Woman with a hair but no beard"'s submarine. The sugar bowl is a container for some clue that proves LS's innocence in arsons. The Baudlaires had a shipwreck, but did not perish.

[orphansrgreat]

Submarine in the shape of a '?'. Their wacky enough!

I HATED THE END HATED HATED THE END!

[Wizz]

But if it was thier submarine, Count Olaf wont be so scared of it.

[orphansrgreat]

He would be scared of it because he scared of them. *sniff* was scraed. R.I.P

[fiendishthingie]

Ah, where to start?

God knows, really, and I don't mean Ishmael, ;D. This thread, I shamefully admit, was actually the one that awakened me to the Bible analogy. Slow, I know. And yes, I think it was controversial: he portrays Ishmael as God, and yet God is obviously corrupt; he portrays the Bauds as Adam and Eve (and, uh, Sunny?) but yet they come out as the heroes who stood up to authority. I'm not sure if that jars with me - and not on any religious level, I have no loyalties there.

One thing I do love about the book, and can't stop thinking about, is Kitlaf. I mean... where did it come from? Why? When? So many questions, and yet for some reason, such a fitting, beautiful relationship. I just wish Olaf hadn't behaved quite so freakishly to start off with, so that it would be in some way more credible. Meh, whatever, I loved it. Beautifully written. Is Kit's baby Olaf's? Well, no, I don't think so. I think Olaf's "short, sharp laugh," may have been in recognition of the fact that he really never did have any kids himself, and the woman he loved was dying in the process of having one. Great poet, Larkin, incidentally - the rest of that poem has swearwords in it, if I recall correctly. Haha. Bad Lemony.

Another thing I love is the way Lemony's bias is gradually revealed. All his superlatives about Olaf's villainy are shown to be somewhat pouty and cross rather than justified. L just didn't like O's relationship with Kit, so he portrayed him as a cartoon villain. Thus, perhaps him and Kit would have made sense, without L's prejudice against him. Not that I resent it - I think it makes the book TONS more interesting.

Most of us already knew Bea was the Baud's mom, I think, so that was just a tad weak as a closing line. But as an overall close - and indeed, the last few paragraphs, even - I've rarely read an ending stronger, so it's all made up for.

Things I didn't like, well, there are a few. I didn't like the way Handler developed themes through the story which were left unresolved. Now, I don't want to be labeled one of those idiots who just doesn't get the concept of the books, because I do. I'm down with lots of the mysteries being left unknown, like the man with a beard but no hair, the Quags, and the "?" (although really the whole point of the latter was that it was unknown, heh heh). It just irritates me how Snicket fans including myself spent so long analysing things, trying to find out who Esme was related to - I mean, it must have been someone, because her surname was scratched off in LSUA, right? Wrong. The whole trio-of-siblings thing turned out not to be across the board, and the whole thing felt as if it had taken off, hovered, and then faded away. It was a pointless thing to introduce, if it wasn't going to be followed up, and it wasn't. It bugs me. He had so much more stuff in there than he even brought up again, and that is nicht cool.

Also, there are some mysteries which should've been solved. Look, I hate to be a nay-sayer, but there really are. I absolutely adore Lemony's way of proving that there are no beginnings and no ends to anything, especially by history repeating itself time and time again (like the conversation in the tent - " '... a student who had scraggly dark hair and just one eyebrow.' 'Count Olaf,' Violet said. 'No, this was a little girl.'" And so on and so forth). But there are Baudelaire-specific things, and we've all been asking them, but he hasn't delivered. To name a few:

- To me, it never mattered what VFD stood for, but he threw us a bone. I think what he really should've done is given us some clue what the hell it is they do. Fine, reply with all your fire rubbish, but you don't need libraries and commonplace books to stop fires. In fact, those things burn easily! So it doesn't make sense. And how could a schism happen the way it did? An organisation is AGAINST fire, and yet one day, some people within it decide they should be FOR fire. That's lame and silly. There's gotta be something better.

- The sugar bowl was half-explained, half-forgotten-about, but that's okay, I guess. It's like the briefcase in Reservoir Dogs.

- Who burned down the Baud's mansion? This matters to me, and it's not a case of having to go back before TBB and way after TE to explain it. Just tell us the damn answer!

All in all, though, did I like it? Well, I loved it. Good thread, too.

[smileyman457]

fiendishthingie said:

Ah, where to start?

God knows, really, and I don't mean Ishmael, ;D. This thread, I shamefully admit, was actually the one that awakened me to the Bible analogy. Slow, I know. And yes, I think it was controversial: he portrays Ishmael as God, and yet God is obviously corrupt; he portrays the Bauds as Adam and Eve (and, uh, Sunny?) but yet they come out as the heroes who stood up to authority. I'm not sure if that jars with me - and not on any religious level, I have no loyalties there.

Hmm. I rather strongly disagree. Where is your basis for 'Ishmael as God'? Ishmael did not create Klaus and Violet, as God did. He did not forbid them to do anything. He merely suggested. So what they did was perfectly alright. God, on the other hand, specifically told Adam & Eve not to eat the fruit. When they disobeyed, they rebelled against authority, and sin and suffering was introduced to the world. I thought the Biblical analogy was the Incredibly Deadly Viper giving Violet the apple, since the Biblical fruit is commonly portrayed as an apple, and that it actually helped in The End . That may be controversial, but only if you dig down that far. Honestly, if I hadn’t known, I would have thought it an interesting coincidence, and maybe if I was really bored, I would have thought about it more.

fiendishthingie said:

- To me, it never mattered what VFD stood for, but he threw us a bone.

I agree. It did to me at first, but after a while what they did became more important. [/quote]

fiendishthingie said:

And how could a schism happen the way it did? An organisation is AGAINST fire, and yet one day, some people within it decide they should be FOR fire. That's lame and silly. There's gotta be something better.

It may tie in with everything on the island. If Ishmael was part of V.F.D, he may have tried to force people into things. The schism commenced, and he high-tailed it to avoid trouble.

Also, to fiendishthingie: I'm not attacking you personally. Just post my view.

[korovamilkbar14]

I've been thinking about this for a time now, and I think I may have a connection with the Baud parents and the poison darts.

Maybe, either when they were on the island or in Anwhistle Aquatics (if they ever were there), they may have gotten a small portion of the Medusoid Mycelium. They could somehow coat the darts in that and use it to kill Olaf's parents.

It sounds far-fetched, but I don't even know what sounds reasonable anymore.

[beatriceblake]

I think the darts that killed Olaf's parents were probably dipped in another poison. The Medusoid Mycelium fungus spreads through the air so it would infect other people besides Olaf's parents. I would like to know why Olaf's parents were killed.

[korovamilkbar14]

Drat, I forgot about the air thing. And either way, I just remembered that it was Kit who slipped the Baud parents the darts, and I'm not sure how she could've gotten hold of them. It said it in TPP.

[liamlvr]

drearydreary said:

philipjucker said:

And weren't they supposed to name their children after people who have died?

Yes, but in the case of Lemony, it cant be that mother Baudelaire wanted to name her son Lemony because Lemony died, as afterall, Lemony snicket was still alive, chronicling the lives of the Baudelaire orphans.

Hence, I said earlier that it shows that mother Baudelaire still has feelings for Lemony Snicket.!

I think Beatrice must have thought Lemony was dead...y else would she suggest breaking tradion...y didnt she marry Lemony...she thought he was dead.... my opion at least

[ChilledCucumber]

Why would Kit give the Bauds the darts if she had a fling with Olaf?

[Dear Dairy]

Good question. Why would Olaf verbally threaten to shoot Kit with the harpoon gun (in Chapter 2, I think), and then kiss her before he dies?