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Post by Dante on Jul 18, 2010 13:44:49 GMT -5
vksvksvksvks, I've taken the liberty of combining your three posts. There's no need to make three posts next to each other like that in such a short space of time; use the Modify button to add to what you've already written. I'll also take the time to give my own answers to some of your questions, in return. I am kind of wondering about kit+olaf vs kit+dewey. What made kit start dating dewey and not olaf? Have you read the entire Harry Potter series? A comparison to Lily and Snape might be fruitful. It's not hard to imagine Count Olaf as a confident, charismatic young man; he managed to draw in people like Fernald and the white-faced women, who believed that being in his theatre troupe would be fun and daring. He could equally well have been attractive to Kit in their younger days. As shown in the brief mentions of him in The Beatrice Letters, even as a child Olaf had a malicious streak. People rarely turn evil overnight, and I think he was always more willing than most to put his interests ahead of other people's. Very unlikely. We are meant to get the impression that Olaf and Kit were a couple only a very long time ago, whereas it is quite clear that Kit and Dewey are in a close relationship in the present. They numbered among the J.S.s, to be sure, but who do you think sent Mr. Poe to Briny Beach to collect the Baudelaires at the end of TGG? That doesn't seem like something a friend would have done, since Mr. Poe just wanted to hand them over to the police. In other words, there's still room for at least one more J.S. in the plot. It is certainly suggested so; Olaf believes it, and it seems as if Dewey believes it, too. But we don't know the whole story, and we probably never will. |
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Post by Hermes on Jul 18, 2010 14:32:22 GMT -5
As shown in the brief mentions of him in The Beatrice Letters, even as a child Olaf had a malicious streak. People rarely turn evil overnight, and I think he was always more willing than most to put his interests ahead of other people's. 'Turn evil' is perhaps the wrong way of putting it - as you say, he was never a very nice guy - but I think it's quite possible that his breakup with Kit was what made him desert the good side of VFD. It's certainly likely that this came earlier than the death of his parents. There does seem to be at least one more JS - the JS who wrote to Sir is clearly a villain, probably Olaf, perhaps impersonating Jacques. But I have been wondering - how unlikely is it, in fact, that Strauss or Jerome alerted Mr Poe? They don't know the details of what's been happening to the orphans, and for both of them, Mr Poe would seem to be the responsible person, as he was last time they met the Baudelaires. |
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Post by Christmas Chief on Jul 18, 2010 15:06:03 GMT -5
There does seem to be at least one more JS - the JS who wrote to Sir is clearly a villain, probably Olaf, perhaps impersonating Jacques. But I have been wondering - how unlikely is it, in fact, that Strauss or Jerome alerted Mr Poe? They don't know the details of what's been happening to the orphans, and for both of them, Mr Poe would seem to be the responsible person, as he was last time they met the Baudelaires. There's also Justice Strauss informing the sinister duo of the Baudelaires' travels; if she's oblivious to that kind of evil, I don't think it would be at all surprising if it turned out she was the one who alerted Mr. Poe. Say, did Justice Strauss ever actually read Odious Lusting After Finance? She tells Olaf that there's enough evidence to lock him up for life, but that could be because she was taking Jerome's word on it. I mention this because if Jerome researched all of that, he'd probably encountered some information on Mr. Poe (the book contains "history of greedy villains, treacherous girlfriends, bungling bankers, and all the other people responsible for injustice.") and not trust him. |
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Post by Hermes on Jul 19, 2010 12:34:53 GMT -5
I think even if Strauss knows about Mr Poe's bungling she may still think the orphans ought to be with him - she is a very 'by the book' person; and after all she trusts the justice system and thinks everything is about to be resolved, after which presumably he won't be a source of trouble any more. (Something similar would apply to Jerome.)
I think we are meant to see the revelation of Strauss and Jerome as solving the 'JS' mystery (with the twist that Olaf has also been using the name). There are lots of real mysteries in ASOUE, but we fans sometimes have a tendency to make things worse, by not accepting the answers we are given
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Post by korovamilkbar14 on Aug 1, 2010 1:37:09 GMT -5
I wanted to ask this for a while, but wasn't sure exactly how to phrase it. The consensus around here seems to be that Handler arrived at the idea of VFD around the 5th book (clearly, a little before). I agree with this. However, I don't know how much of the writing prior to that would be considered retcon. Maybe I'm just being idealistic, but there were elements of TWW that seemed to be setting up for something (such as the coded note). What do you guys think?
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Post by Christmas Chief on Aug 1, 2010 10:20:15 GMT -5
The series was initially meant to be only four books in length, so there's bound to be some retcon beyond TMM. I agree, though, that elements in TWW do hint toward a larger plot.
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Post by Hermes on Aug 1, 2010 13:30:47 GMT -5
I'm not sure about the coded note. I think it can perfectly well be explained within TWW, by saying that Josephine has invented the code, and is relying (rightly) on the Baudelaires' ingenuity to solve it. I actually feel that the discovery that she belonged to an organisation which regularly used codes spoils it a little.
However, there is a forward-looking bit in TWW, where we are told that Josephine's life-jacket was discovered about the time the Baudlelaires attended a cruel school.
The first hint of a larger story, I think, comes in TMM when we are told that Beatrice once asked 'Where is Count Olaf?'; this implies that Lemony's own story is connected with the Baudlelaires' story.
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Post by korovamilkbar14 on Aug 2, 2010 21:12:18 GMT -5
It probably was in TMM, you're right.
I sometimes wonder how different the series would be had VFD been introduced from TBB. It's more than likely that the amount of questions we have would double, even though there'd be more time to explore some of them.
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Post by Dante on Aug 7, 2010 10:24:13 GMT -5
Even after the introduction of V.F.D., there are times when the backstory of the series seems to have been rewritten, so perhaps it's less a case of a single massive retcon, and more of a series of evolutions that adapt the pre-existing texts. It's a manner of Handler coming up with an idea that would be neat to introduce and which would shape an ongoing series a little more, but which colours that which has already been written, too; that is, rather than being a "retcon," something designed to change the past, it was a device designed to change the future, with the alterations to the past being somewhat incidental. Josephine and Monty being members of V.F.D., Sir supplying their wood - this is flavour. It could be omitted. As for the Baudelaire parents, with Beatrice being the Baudelaire mother, revelations about their past would always have been waiting to occur at some point. I can well anticipate, too, that Handler might've kept a list of future locations the Baudelaires would attend, going forward enough to know that the Baudelaires would be attending boarding school not long after TWW. Indeed, TMM makes a number of references to the Baudelaires being sent to boarding school next, and of course some amount of TMM would need to have already been written for the Kind Editor note in TWW to be completed.
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the
Bewildered Beginner
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Post by the on Jan 24, 2011 23:15:57 GMT -5
i think tha js stands for jermy snicet, kits brother.i wanna read the beatrice letters.Its the next series. so if u wanna know more i think u should read it......................................................i still dont get why olaf kisser kit that i will always wonder
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Post by Dante on Jan 25, 2011 6:37:15 GMT -5
You seem confused, the. Kit's brother is called Jacques Snicket, and The Beatrice Letters is a book with extra information on the series that would be best read just before The End. As for why Olaf kissed Kit, it seems that he loved her when they were young and took the chance to relive a happy memory, since he knew he was dying.
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Post by Leanora Crowe on Jan 25, 2011 9:01:34 GMT -5
On that note, does anyone else think it remotely possible that Olaf could be the father of Kit's baby?
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Post by Dante on Jan 25, 2011 9:46:30 GMT -5
It's been brought up, but the general line of thinking is that Kit and Olaf's relationship was probably a very long time ago, whereas Kit and Dewey's was very recent and we know they've been working together for some time.
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Post by Invisible on Jan 25, 2011 9:48:25 GMT -5
I have always wondered that. That's how I came up with the idea of Kit's teen pregnancy. (The baby, Joshua, died at birth  ) |
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Post by Wasabi on Feb 5, 2011 23:14:22 GMT -5
It's interesting how there could be a possibility of Kit Snicket having Olaf's baby. Although I thought originally it was Dewey's, and seeing as Olaf loved Kit Snicket when she was younger; I wonder if that's why Olaf dressed as a pregnant woman. We all know he's overdramatic, but perhaps he was jealous that she had one to Dewey rather than him, and that's why Violet received the harpoon gun from Olaf in TPP, so that she could do the deed for him and be the father of the child instead. But then of course, he ends up dying, and decides to kiss her before doing so, so show he still has feelings for her.
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I am kind of wondering about kit+olaf vs kit+dewey. What made kit start dating dewey and not olaf?
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