Who is the arsonist?

[lemonydrink]

Could it be Lemony himself?

If you have (and I assume as much) seen the film, it is eluded to that Olaf set fire to the house with the giant magnifying glass. However, the books make no mention of this (do they??).

The strange thing is... every character in the book seems to have a tie to the plot and the 'character tree' if you can call it that, other than Count Olaf.

We know that Olaf and Lemony aren't the same person, because Olaf obviously died.

The thing that gets me is... Lemony seems to know so much...

The other thing I noticed, because yesterday I was reading about Beatrice in a thread... I don't think Beatrice burned in the fire. In one of the books ( I don't remember which but I'll edit this later or add to it), the dedication says something about Beatrice being in a grave. If people burn, how can you put them in a grave?


Discuss. Tell me if you think my ideas are stupid...

[thistledown]

I enjoy the idea of Lemony being the arsonist. However, I have no facts to back it up. I think it makes a nice twist.

In the LSUA, it says 'The Baudelaires aren't buried here" ... "or here."

And I always took that to mean the Baudelaire parents. You can bury ashes though. Or scatter them.

[Persnickety Raven]

Do try to remember that the movie canon has no bearing on the book's canon. The magnifying glass was strictly a movie creation. As to the mystery arsonist, the evidence is slim. Olaf didn't acknowledge or deny the question, and Lemony has denied burning anything, and furthurmore was blamed for fires that Count Olaf set.

[thistledown]

Yeah, the movie isn't cannon. Especially those spyglasses and the eye-fire thingy machine do-dad. I'm good at that mechanical tech, huh? *laughs* But I personally think Olaf was responsible. However, there is a slight chance that Lemony is too. I mean, his tracking of the Baudelaire's is stalkerish to say the least. But there is no evidence to support that Lemony was the arsonist. There's more evidence to support Olaf.

[Persnickety Raven]

True, though I think there's more circumstantial evidence to hang Esme with.


Just my opinion.

[Phoebonica]

lemonydrink said:

If people burn, how can you put them in a grave?

People who burn to death aren't usually completely incinerated. Humans just don't burn that well, so there'd probably be enough of the bodies left to give them a proper burial. Or as thistledown pointed out, you can bury ashes.

[thistledown]

Totally-nearly off topic (did that make sense): why (or why do you think that) was there no funeral mention in TBB...was it just that Snicket thought that it was pretty obvious there would be one, or? Pointless question but I'm curious.

[Dante]

It's a good thing the state of the Baudelaire parents' bodies was never referenced, as that would've made it more difficult for Snicket to use the "one parent might have survived" plot twist; then again, he could always have suggested somebody else was at the mansion and their corpse was mistaken for the second Baudelaire parent. As for the lack of a funeral, maybe Snicket was more interested in just hurrying the plot along to Olaf's house, and nothing particularly interesting or significant would have occurred.

My theory was that Olaf was at the mansion, but it burnt down by accident, making him the survivor of the fire. Worst possible answer for the Baudelaire children. I still like it, even though we're apparently meant to believe the Snicket File referred to Quigley.

[lemonydrink]

Thistle... that wasn't off topic
I agree with all those possible reasons why the funeral was not mentioned.

Perhaps there was no funeral anyway - the children never mentioned a funeral in any of the other books, and I think that a funeral would have been important. If Lemony mentioned itchy clothing and the bratty Poe children, I'm sure a funeral would have been mentioned. Therefore, I think that there was no funeral. This adds to the mystery of the circumstances.

Regarding the Snicket File (and why was it so called if it really contained information about quite a few VFD members, unless of course, it referred to Lemony Snicket's alleged arson attempt/s), I think Quigley was mentioned (if we believe it was him that was mentioned) because someone 'out there' found out that he was alive, even though it might have been previously thought that all the Quagmires died.

[Dante]

lemonydrink said:

Regarding the Snicket File (and why was it so called if it really contained information about quite a few VFD members, unless of course, it referred to Lemony Snicket's alleged arson attempt/s)...

This might be helpful: Firstly, the Snicket File is referred to in THH originally as "the Baudelaire file," (THH 116) and I recall it's only at the end that the term "Snicket file" (THH 250) is used. Hal also describes it as "the file on the Snicket fires," (THH 70) which suggests to me that it's a file on Lemony's alleged arsons. TSS also suggests that the file was written by the three Snicket siblings (page 195) (although Kit says she hasn't seen her brothers for years (TPP 30)).

[blowinbubbles]

According to the 12 shocking secrets, Lemony Snicket is wanted for arson. So I guess he could be the arsonist..but...he could of set fire to something else...

[Dante]

Just because somebody is wanted for a crime doesn't necessarily mean they committed it. Lemony has repeatedly denied in the books the allegations that he has committed arson (for example, in his autobiography titles on page 59 of the U.A.); he says that the fires he's accused of setting were actually set by Count Olaf (TSS 101), and I'm inclined to believe him as he's always very open, and we've no other voice in the setting to tell us how things are. (And it's 13 Shocking Secrets, not 12.)

[thistledown]

I agree--but what about the reference to Beatrice dying in the afternoon? When the Baudelaire parents died in the morning? Was Lemony possibly referring to the other Beatrice? Or did their mother die later on?

[Dante]

On a short check-through of Chapter One of TBB, I do see one reference to it being the morning, and I know Lemony says Beatrice died in the afternoon as I looked the quote up myself the other day, it's THH 196. Fortunately, I think we can work around it.

Starting with TBB, just going on that one Chapter One mention - I don't have time to look through the rest of every other book to see if there are any other references to the fire being in the morning - then the extract is as follows: Their misfortune began one day at Briny Beach. The three Baudelaire children lived with their parents in an enormous mansion at the heart of a dirty and busy city, and occasionally their parents gave them permission to take a rickety trolley--the word "rickety," you probably know, here means "unsteady" or "likely to collapse"--alone to the seashore, where they would spend the day as a sort of vacation as long as they were home for dinner. This particular morning it was gray and cloudy, which didn't bother the Baudelaire youngsters one bit. When it was hot and sunny, Briny Beach was crowded with tourists adn it was impossible to find a good place to lay one's blanket. On gray and cloudy days, the Baudelaires had the beach to themselves to do what they liked. (BB 2) The way the expression is phrased allows us to interpret the reference to the morning as referring to only when the Baudelaires arrived at the beach; since they were staying the whole day, the time could have passed to afternoon by the time Mr. Poe arrived. It requires distortion of one's interpretation of language beyond the norm, but that may be a necessity here.

With regards to the THH reference, it's as follows: When you read as many books as Klaus Baudelaire, you are going to learn a great deal of information that might not become useful for a long time. You might read a book that would teach you all about the exploration of outer space, even if you do not become an astronaut until you are eighty years old. You might read a book about how to perform tricks on ice skates, and then not be forced to perform these tricks for a few weeks. You might read a book on how to have a successful marriage, when the only woman you will ever love has married someone else and then perished one terrible afternoon. (THH 196) Does Lemony actually say the name "Beatrice" there? No. Although he was almost certainly referring to her, because it conflicts with other evidence, we can reinterpret it as merely a hypothetical suggestion - after all, Lemony Snicket was probably not an eight-year-old astronaut (very late edit: That should be "eighty-year-old," but the point still stands that I don't see him in space).

Alternatively, we can suggest that Handler was deliberately planting red herrings about Beatrice's identity - THH is the same book which has an anagram of "Beatrice Baudelaire" on a list of patients that also includes an anagram of "red herring," and was published right before a book that had Beatrice doing something the Baudelaire mother once did, but at a theatre named for the same anagram of "red herring." Another possibility is that, at the time, Handler didn't think Beatrice was the Baudelaire mother, as I've speculated before that during the initial complication of the series from somewhere between TAA to TVV, Handler decided to make Beatrice's identity somewhat less straightforward, before later changing his mind again sometime between TGG (which refers to Beatrice and the Baudelaire parents apparently separately, although it can be interpreted ambiguously) and TBL.

[dangerouslydapper]

I think someone earlier said something about Esme doing it. I must say that this is the theory I have always believed in. Not only did she have a grudge against Beatrice (motive), but she also had the oportunity (secret passage), and the MO (arson).