Chapter 14 (spoilers)

[the13end]

Oh, my! There's a chapter fourteen?!? How odd!
I thought all of Snicket's books only had 13 chapters!
But how?!? How could it be? It may not be that important, but I've seen it. Discuss.

[Tigerclaw can drive a car :B]

true it is a bit surprising.... the picture is odd aswell.

[C.]

Snicket knew that the book couldn't end with 13 chapters, so he decided to make Chapter Fourteen its own book, sort of.

[Dante]

I regard it as being an epilogue of sorts, because while it's Chapter Fourteen of The End then it's also presented as a book on its own, an additional entry to the series. I think that the fourteenth chapter being the ending rather than the thirteenth reinforces the fact that A Series of Unfortunate Events, like the man that caused them, is over.

[the13end]

But after Chapter 14, the part where it says something on Snicket, it says he's still at large. That might mean that he's going to be writing something like A Second Series of Unfortunate Events.

[Dragoness]

I agree with the13end. That last picture is pretty convicing.

[beatriceblake]

Chapter 14 breaks the cycle as the Baudelaires have done. They are safe from Count Olaf and at least for a while their series of unfortunate events is over, not with a bang but a baby. However the paradox is this broken pattern is also a motif in the series.

3 siblings one of whom is dead,
13 books, one of which has 14 chapters,
The whole thing of the similar stories featuring different people,
The Baudelaires descent into treachery is stopped. They do not murder Olaf. Most of the other characters with villainous pasts grew worse like Olaf, Esme and Olivia.

[Sugary Snicket]

It's like a turning point - they're on their own, and they can survive alone now - they probably even may have claimed the money of their parents, unless it is no longer there or it was stolen... *coughByMrs.BassCheckBookTheTwelfthWhenSheHadTheMoneyBagscough*

I think that the 14th chapter is a way of symbolising that the Baudelaires' Series of Unfortunate Events is over. Olaf is dead, the orphans are safe. Olaf was the problem in the first place. No more problem = no more complications.

Though I still disagree that their mother is well and truely dead. Evidence in TBL seems to suggest otherwise - for instance, certain letters within it seem to imply that she is alive and searching for her children - she also seems to have contacted Lemony somehow. If this is true, maybe they do find their mother, the Quagmires, Fiona, etc. There's a lot of fanfiction potential here.

[RockSunner]

You think the letters to Lemony in TBL were written by the original Beatrice and not by the younger Beatrice, the daughter of Kit? Why?

[Dragoness]

Maybe fan- fiction and more books.

[Semesther, the Dolphin Vampire]

I thought chapter 14 was cool. I think that it is a book of it's own. Becaues it's so thin that it's not separate.

[Lan Tufoco]

rocksunner said:

You think the letters to Lemony in TBL were written by the original Beatrice and not by the younger Beatrice, the daughter of Kit? Why?

It had stamped on all of them BB to LS unless the baby married Klaus or something how could that be

[queenofknerds]

I liked Chapter 14. It was lovely - as much as one can use such a word regarding these books - a lovely little epilogue that relieved some of the dreadful woe that came with the previous chapters.

[Dante]

veryfinedetective said:

rocksunner said:

You think the letters to Lemony in TBL were written by the original Beatrice and not by the younger Beatrice, the daughter of Kit? Why?

It had stamped on all of them BB to LS unless the baby married Klaus or something how could that be

Because young Beatrice adopted their surname, since they're the people raising her, and partly probably so that Handler could make TBL more of a muddle of ambiguous names. The context of the BB to LS letters makes it pretty clear that it's not an adult writing, and she has a history that matches up with that of the young Beatrice.

[duchessofdoom]

Ok, this is kind off topic, but it has to do with Chapter 14!
You know how there is a page opposite the dedication for Beatrice in Chapter 14? Well, there's this tiny little print under where it says "Illustrations copyright 2006 by Brett Helquist. I transalated it. It's origanally french, but when it's transalated to english, the tiny print says :
O Dead, old captain, it is times! let us get up the anchor! This country bothers us, o Dead! Let us match! If the sky and the sea are black as ink, Our hearts that you know are filled with rays!
Kind of weird, huh?
Dicuss, anyone?