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Post by Dante on Jun 21, 2011 15:55:48 GMT -5
You've clearly thought about this a lot, so there's only one small thing I'd like to add: Something always interested me about Olaf's parents' death though because it's said to have happened a little bit before the fire occured but in TPP it says the poison darts left Olaf an orphan. Don't they usually just refer to children as orphans? And Olaf is well into his forties. It's true that "orphan" is a term usually used of children, but in TPP Dewey is also referred to in the present day as an orphan, so the term in ASoUE is also being extended to adults. One might suggest that it refers to individuals whose parents were killed before they had a chance to die in a normal way. |
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Post by Hermes on Jun 21, 2011 17:29:32 GMT -5
I don't remember where i found it exactly, but it was on the internet. So it may not be true but it makes a lot of sense because Olaf seemed to know the secret passage well. I like this idea. I think it is possible that the building committee meeting in TUA happens at 667. There's a reference to 'the lobby of the building three doors away', or something like that, which fits that kind of setting. So, the idea would be, after VFD have to leave their headquarters at 667 because Olaf has found it out, they sell it to Jerome - Esme then marries Jerome to get access to it again. Now, it would make a lot of sense if before that it had belonged to Olaf's parents, and they sold or donated it to VFD - that might explain how Olaf found out about it being the VFD headquarters. Actually, I think the letter from Jacques to Jerome in TUA shows fairly clearly that he isn't a member of VFD at that point. I think Dewey's point is that he became a volunteer by volunteering, later, when he set out to help the Baudelaires. He may well be a distant relation of Beatrice's, and perhaps he met Jacques thorugh her. There's no reason why volunteers should be friends only with volunteers. |
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Post by violetbaudelaire51 on Jun 24, 2011 11:26:14 GMT -5
Oh, i didn't know that. I didn't ever get a chance to thoroughly read TUA so i only know what i've read on forums, etc... And now that i think about it, it doesn't make a lot of sense if the Baudelaire's parents didn't know Olaf was a villain. But it still doesn't make sense as to why they would let him in their home if he was the villain Lemony was referring to.
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Post by colette on Jul 18, 2011 10:47:16 GMT -5
I suspect I could be Esmeralda.
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Post by Dante on Jul 18, 2011 10:55:02 GMT -5
I don't recall a character called "Esmeralda" in the series, colette; I'm not sure what you mean. Would you care to explain?
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Post by colette on Jul 18, 2011 10:56:38 GMT -5
Esme is Esmeralda.I just like to call Esme with her full name.
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Post by Isadora on Jul 18, 2011 11:28:13 GMT -5
Esme is Esmeralda.I just like to call Esme with her full name. That's her full name? Didn't know that. Well, you learn something new every day! :) |
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Post by Christmas Chief on Jul 18, 2011 12:13:19 GMT -5
Esmé gives her full name as Esmé Gigi Genevieve Squalor (the city's sixth most important financial adviser, no less!) in the series. Is Esmeralda a variation of the name Esmé, colette?
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Post by Dante on Jul 18, 2011 14:00:18 GMT -5
A little research indicates that Esmé is sometimes a form of Esmeralda, but there's no indication that that's true in the series, and the name is never mentioned in any of the varied contexts that Esmé is discussed in. As such, I would conclude that Esmé is not, in fact, short for Esmeralda.
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Post by colette on Jul 19, 2011 0:56:30 GMT -5
Gigi is also short for something.
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Post by Dante on Jul 19, 2011 3:03:16 GMT -5
Gigi is also short for something. Gigi is a 1944 novella by French writer Colette Coincidence??? Yes. Again, the actual consensus is that Gigi can be a name on its own or can be short for another name, just like Esmé, except unlike Esmé there are several names that it can be short for, and thus even fewer grounds for extrapolating a spurious "full name." |
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Post by heartwood on Nov 21, 2011 12:59:14 GMT -5
Could Beatrice be the one who set the fire? I haven't read TUA or TBL (not yet, at least), so correct me if I'm wrong here, but could it be plausible that Beatrice thought Lemony was dead and then married Bertrand, as others have suggested, and then later found out Lemony was alive and wanted to be with him so set the house on fire to kill her husband, especially at a time when she knew her children were away at the beach and wouldn't be caught in the fire? This could mean that she is the one who survived the fire that was mentioned in the Snicket File. I wasn't sure if Beatrice was the type committ such a crime, but then I remembered how it is always suggested that no one is truly evil and even noble people do awful things. The only problem with this is that Lemony is always saying that Beatrice is dead, so you'd have to believe that Beatrice died not in the fire, but in some other way. Maybe while the fire blazed (in the morning), she escaped through the passageway to 667 and was caught by Esme (in the afternoon), who was angry that Beatrice had stolen her sugar bowl? Of course, it did say in TEE that Jerome and Esme had just moved into that apartment when the Baudelaires come to live with them...The theory might be a bit of a stretch, but I thought I'd post it anyway!
"For Beatrice –
Our love broke my heart,
and stopped yours."
(from The Carnivorous Carnival)
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Post by Dante on Nov 22, 2011 5:12:05 GMT -5
I'm reasonably confident that we know this to be untrue, but I don't have the time to look up the references; but there are a few points where it's indicated that Lemony had communicated with Beatrice after she became Mrs. Baudelaire. There's also the fact that Beatrice and Bertrand, from the few scenes we get between them, were very much in love; her deciding on a moment's thought to kill her beloved husband and exile herself from her family forever to be with a man who she hasn't spoken to for fifteen years and who may well disapprove of her actions seems a bit of a stretch. Worth thinking about, though; we should consider all options.
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Post by Hermes on Nov 22, 2011 10:02:08 GMT -5
I'm reasonably confident that we know this to be untrue, but I don't have the time to look up the references; but there are a few points where it's indicated that Lemony had communicated with Beatrice after she became Mrs. Baudelaire. Well, we are told he met her at the masked ball, and spoke to her for the first time in fifteen years. It seems likely that the start of the fifteen years is to be reckoned from the telegram, sent when she was pregnant with Violet, which means the masked ball would come just before her death. They don't seem to have communciated directly in the fifteen years between, though there were times, e.g. the poyzon darts incident, when they were quite near each other. This would fit heartwood's theory quite well. I do agree that it's rather surprising given what we know of B's character. |
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Post by B. on Nov 22, 2011 10:56:02 GMT -5
The Baudelaire fire is, I find strongly suggested to be arson.
In TBB rare edition notes lemony says that the Baudealires table had a ring on it due to a beverage being put down on it without a coaster.
It is also says that there was a similar ring on one of the benches in the royal gardens before they burnt down.
Does this suggest that the Baudelaire mansion and the Royal gardens were burned down by the same person?
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Something always interested me about Olaf's parents' death though because it's said to have happened a little bit before the fire occured but in TPP it says the poison darts left Olaf an orphan. Don't they usually just refer to children as orphans? And Olaf is well into his forties. 
