Questions About Baudelaires Actions.

[DarkAvenue13]

I am wondering, during the part of The End, where Kit Snicket asks Violet if Dewey is with them, She Say's, "No, he's not here", because they/she could not bear to reveal the truth toa higher person, of the V.F.D, or to anyone, now...and perhaps, not even ever.

Why not come clean, and tell someone that he is dead, that she took someones life? I see the emotional aspects attached to this, but I do not understand it.

Also, during The End when Count Olaf is in the Bird Cage, he tells the Baudelaires of all of the different things he could tell them about schims, there parents, them, V.F.D, what's going on and stuff. However, the Baudelaires inadvertantly avoived his voice as L.S said, and thought of other things, and drank Coconut Cordial to distract them...the taste. It said, the stuff he would tell them would destroy them, but it's very important for them to know it, I believe and it said, they wanted to avoid it as long as possible, no matter what, how ever. Why? This makes no sense becuase that may have been there last chance, stuck on a deserted island with no way to leave ever.


Also, what is the deal with the Baudelaires not telling Kit there story, "not yet"...I just do not get it. She needed to be caught up on what was going on! The same was with Ishmael, when he said, "Yes Baudelaires that is your Mom's Hand writing", and went o nto discuss the meducoid mycelium and what would happen if it ever got onto the island, yet they just sat there...not saying one word, keeping quiet as mice.

Thanks for any help.

Edit: Also, why did the Baudelaires not just say no to Ishmael, trying to convince them they belonged on the island, in chapter 10? Instead, Violet, acts hypnotized, almost literally and profoundly says..."Do you think that's what our parents would have wanted", to someone who diluted drinks to mkae people make decisions laxer. Instead, they just forgot completely about there task at hand, about building weapons, and helping Kit, from Finn, and the other person with the flashlight, who will start the mutiny...it's like they became hyptonitzed. Please explain.

[RockSunner]

The Baudelaires eventually do tell Kit that Dewey is dead and that they burned down the hotel. I can see why they held back destroying all her hopes at once... from the hope of seeing Dewey again to the hope of a hot shower and a good meal on the island. Someone just barely surviving after a shipwreck needs hope to live.

As for listening to Olaf, remember that he was tempting them to let him out of the cage. They didn't trust him and he himself admitted he was trying to trick them. Bad things happened when he was let out by the mutineers -- he tried to take over the island.

Why listen to Ishmael about living the simple life on the island? Well, think about their lives the last few months before this. The island life was boring but they had food, shelter, and friends. I can see how they might be tempted.

Should they have told Ishmael about the Mycellium? Perhaps, but he used every admission against them. As far as they knew at the time, the poisonous spores were lost for good.

[Dante]

The first admission would likely have been too painful to make, at any time, but especially at that time, given Kit's weakened condition. As RockSunner said, she needed hope to live at the time.

Turning away from Count Olaf is, I think, because the poisonous stories he remembers would shatter any illusions they had left about there being good in the world. The burden of the knowledge he bears would be a terrible influence, and above all, I'm sure the Baudelaires fear becoming just like him.

As for not telling their story to Kit, it's the same reason as before, and the same reason she didn't tell her story to them - the admission would be too painful to make, for both sides. And with Ishmael, they were trapped. They didn't really have any choices left to them but to just let events sweep them along, as they'd done for so long. And they would have been tempted by the simple life after their series of unfortunate events, too, paritcularly if their parents lived it. And at the same time, they didn't know if they could really trust Ishmael, and it may be that they'd hoped Count Olaf and the Medusoid Mycelium would stay trapped in that bird cage forever. What would Ishmael have done if he'd known about it? He already left Olaf to drown, and as demonstrated, the Baudelaires aren't keen to see anyone suffer.