Anyone have any idea what the "Great Unknown" is?

[doetwin]

Sorry, I know I'm really late on here. I think I have an idea of what it is. In 1958, a movie called "The Blob" was released and a remake was released in 1988. The blob is basically a huge jelly-like substance. If it catches a person, that person melts into it and becomes part of the blob. I think the GU might be similar. It's probably some gooey substance that takes the shape of a question mark, and anyone who comes near it gets sucked into it and becomes part of it. It may have been created by a side of the VFD schism in an attempt to defeat their enemies, but ended becoming an enemy to all.

[Teleram]

And where's the evidence for that?

[coolcat667]

Mar 22, 2017 12:15:03 GMT -5 coolcat667 said:

I think that it isn't an actual thing, but just a way of saying that Lemony Snicket doesn't have enough information to have any good idea of what happens next.

I thought this was a good idea, but Lemony Snicket said that he knows what it is (although he won't tell us). So my theory makes no sense. I have a better theory. It will be shown in my new fanfic.

[philiplarkin42]

Many people believe that confirming, or even strongly implying, the identity of The Great Unknown would defeat its symbolic purpose in ASOUE. I disagree, as by the end of The End, I would argue that TGU is less a symbol of the mysterious, and more a thinly veiled euphemism for Death itself. It seems clear that we are meant to connect the Great Unknown to the Bombinating Beast from ATWQ, as each entity ultimately represents Death in its respective series, and it is hardly subtle that each is said to be shaped like a question mark.

It has been argued that it would make little sense for Snicket to refer to the ASOUE entity as “The Great Unknown” if in fact he knew or even suspected it to be “The Bombinating Beast.” However, let’s think a bit about the role of the Beast in his youth. To him, his confrontation with The Beast marks nothing more or less than the end of his childhood; after all, during his first confrontation with the beast, he killed a man by feeding him to it. Surely that moment scarred him forever, and seems likely to be the impetus for the entire ATWQ series – essentially, “How I become a murderer.” So why not call that Thing which he so heavily associates from that point forward with death by a name that is obviously a euphemism for death? That would make perfect sense to me. By simultaneously making it sound mysterious as well as a thinly veiled metaphor for death, he may also be trying to distance himself from some of the guilt that he surely feels from his prior interaction with the Beast, it seems like just the thing that the cowardly adult Snicket would do.

Which brings us back to ASOUE. There are several references in the text that suggest that both Snicket as well as Widdershins have a pretty good idea what the question mark actually is. The “…just as I will not tell,” line strongly implies this, as does Widdershin’s speech about “secrets too terrible for children.” A secret cannot be terrible if in fact nobody knows that the truth itself is terrible; in fact, a secret implies that at least one party knows or suspects the truth while others do not. If nobody knows what that question mark is, why not refer to it as “a mystery” instead? Perhaps Widdershins feels that “a science experiment gone wrong which once ate a man and now stalks the sea” qualifies as something too terrible for children to hear. Another argument against TGU and TBB being one and the same is that TBB is thought to return to the Clusterous Forest, far from the sea, at the end of ATWQ. However, we should remember that TBB “hopped, bounded, leapt, and swam” over from the fire pond to the train in a matter of moments, and clearly has borderline supernatural powers, so it is not at all hard for me to suspend disbelief enough to imagine that at some point between ATWQ and ASOUE, TBB or a BB made its way from the Clusterous Forest or Stain’d by the Sea and into the ocean.

Finally, I think the implied possibility that The Great Unknown is in fact the Bombinating Beast actually gives some hope at the end of The End that some readers have pointed out, but which most have glossed over. This goes into the realm of what Dante and others would likely consider pure speculation amounting to fan fiction, but I believe this is the exact type of thinking that Handler was encouraging when he wrote the series. Let’s entertain the idea that TBB and TGU are the same entity. We know that Snicket used the statue once to control the beast as a youth. Why not use it again in an attempt to rescue the Quagmires & associates when they fell into the ocean? Similarly, why not use it to rescue the Baudelaires when The Beatrice eventually sinks? Of course, we will never have the exact answers to these questions, nor should we, but I think that it works quite well from a narrative perspective, and I think that it is the type of thinking which Handler may be encouraging from readers of both ASOUE and ATWQ. In other words, I don't think that strongly implying the identity of TGU to be TBB ruins the end of ASOUE, if we refine that which TGU is actually a symbol for -- not general mystery so much as Death.

[Uncle Algernon]

philiplarkin42 : I like that "spot of hope" idea, though it conflicts with the Snicket Sleuth's interpretation of where the series ends — that Lemony quits investigating the Baudelaire children's life after they leave the Island not because they had no further adventures, but because at this point he again loses track of them and is heartbroken, after the spot of hope of thinking he'd find them on the island, to learn that his sister is dead and his infant niece he had no idea existed is lost at sea. 

Also, there is an arresting idea, also by the Snicket Sleuth, that the Great Unknown is the Bombinating Beast, but not our Bombinating Beast, the one we know from ATWQ — instead, it's the Bombinating Beast. The original, eldritch, perhaps-supernatural ghoulie spoken of in legend, whom Hangfire, the villain of ATWQ tried to recreate through genetics, leading to the birth of the artificial Bombinating Beast Lemony faced. After all, Lemony's Beast was last seen disappearing into the Forest, not the ocean; whereas the original Beast could, and probably did, swim away to the wider ocean before Stain'd-by-the-Sea became isolated. 

[philiplarkin42]

"Eldritch," what a great word. Yes, I have read that theory that the Great Unknown may be "the original" Bombinating Beast, rather than the exact one that Lemony encounters in ATWQ, and to me that works just as well. The important point to me is that there is no reason why TGU can't in fact be "an animal, just trying to make its way in the world." The symbolism and mythology surrounding it are expected human responses to an aspect of nature that people fear or which is incompletely understood. The whole time we have been thinking that Hangfire was trying to recreate a myth with the animal that he was breeding in ATWQ, but why shouldn't the opposite be true? Why shouldn't all of the myths and legends surrounding TGU and TBB be simply rooted in an animal that does in fact exist, which Hangfire was able to breed? An implied point of my post above was that I believe "The Great Unknown" may in fact be an intentional misnomer, as suggested by certain adults appearing to know what it is, and that this doesn't necessarily detract from its symbolism if we re-evaluate what it is a symbol for. In terms of "the spot of hope," I think that it is just that -- just one of countless possibilities of the fate of the Baudelaires and indeed all of the characters who encounter the Great Unknown by the end of the series. However, if we take TGU and TBB connection seriously, then I think it is relevant to consider who possesses the statue at the end of the series, if anyone.

[Hermes]

I've just been looking at the scene where Kit describes the GU, and I think the key line is where she says the Quagmires were 'either swallowed up or rescued' by it. That ambiguity seems important to preserve, whether it's a symbol of mystery generally or more specifically of death. I have been assuming, as I think others have, that if it's definitely a beast that resolves the ambiguity: being swallowed by a beast is certainly a bad thing.

But then - think of Jonah.

[Dante]

One thing I would be inclined to point out about your reading is that the Great Unknown as Death, rather than being antithetical to the symbolic purpose of the Great Unknown, is a symbolic purpose; though I would also say that it's merely one facet of the greater metaphor here, rather than the sole and defining one. In that sense it remains contentious to attempt to identify the Great Unknown by stealth; to introduce, again, a concrete and factual answer to the ultimate question. On the one hand, we have the conclusion of TPP where the author openly encourages us to decide for ourselves what happened to more or less every character; and on the other, we have a sea monster which ate everyone. There are many cases where a perfectly literal answer can be imbued with all the symbolic and metaphorical meaning you like; but this is one of the rare cases, perhaps a unique one, where the metaphor and the reality are at such odds that both cannot co-exist. The Bombinating Beast is not a mystery; nor was it when it could be identified only as a sea monster which tore apart the Quagmires and Baudelaires in its jaws. You may call that an unknown quantity nonetheless if you like, as might Lemony, but the truth is it is all too prosaic.

I actually think that you're more or less correct in your reading of ATWQ's conclusion, however, with the Bombinating Beast appearing as an avatar of death. This is an angle I have considered; the possibility of reading the denouement of ATWQ as metaphor rather than literal sequence of events. Snicket and Hangfire struggled at the broken window; and one of them fell. (The derailment of the train I suppose may be attributed to line damage owing to simple subsidence.) Ashamed, Snicket disseminated a version of events which refused to own up to his crime directly; but introduced instead a monster which he had summoned. It fits, of course, and in this context we may even allow the symbol and the symbolised to co-exist - because what is being symbolised has changed. This is indeed the monster which hungrily devoured a man, heartlessly and without hope. But to read that back into ASoUE is to reduce its ending to bleak nihilism. I can construct that argument, if you like, and import more than one Snicket Sleuth theory into it; but is that really what anyone wants, if they do not despise the series and everyone in it?

I'm not particularly interested either in pursuing the idea of a symbolic manifestation of death being in thrall to a musical idol. A creature of rage and violence might be summoned by anyone to throw a weak old man from an open window; but to ask it from far across the sea to oppose its very nature and spirit an indeterminate number of individuals safely back to land, by the command of a wooden gimcrack? That takes us into the realm of pure fantasy; and only the barest shade of a concession towards weird science retrieves the conclusion of ATWQ from that fate - or else from being, as I said, pure metaphor. And on that note of weird science, I point out that there is no indication in the text that there is any differentiation in kind between the Bombinating Beast which appears at the conclusion of the series, and the one spoken of in legend. Indeed, the fact that both could be directed by a common artifact which employed a fragment of ancient Beast skin rather suggests that they had everything in common.

Edit: One final note: There is no textual evidence to support the Bombinating Beast being able to safely rescue and carry anyone. If there was, that would in turn undermine the ending of ATWQ.

[Hermes]

I agree that the Bombinating Beast as we discover it in ATWQ cannot be a symbol either of mystery or of death (where death is itself seen as a mystery, which the use of 'great unknown' implies): it is too plainly a hostile thing; it could not rescue anyone. I still think that a beast, simply as such, could be such a symbol; but it would have to be a different beast from the one we know.

I take it it's meant to be ambiguous whether Hangfire's BB is the same thing as the original BB, and indeed whether the original BB was a beast at all. But it seems quite likely that it was, since Hangfire was actually researching the BB, with Caviar: Salty Jewel of the Tasty Sea apparently providing the clue which shows how a BB can be bred.

[philiplarkin42]

There was a fantastic post from years back which I can no longer find that emphasized the difference in genre between ATWQ and ASOUE and how keeping this in mind, one might be able to reconcile TBB and TGU as being essentially the same entity. In the noirish world of ATWQ, a villain is "a man in a room," and the BB, the central specter of ATWQ, is in the end noted to be "an animal trying to make its way in the world." In noir, death is mundane, but also garish and explicitly visualized, just as the beast is fully visualized devouring Hangfire in the end. Contrastingly, in the gothic world of ASOUE, death is an overarching mystery that is too vast to comprehend and more often than not occurs off screen (even the death of Madam Lulu in TCC was heard but not seen). I see no reason why the BB and TGU cannot each serve these roles in their respective series, in a similar way that depictions of the same characters from folklore may differ in description depending on the origin of the folktale, or the way that the same volunteers who are depicted as brave and fierce in ATWQ are later depicted as laughable cowards in ASOUE. In terms of what is feasible for an entity such as the BB/TGU to achieve physically, I honestly feel that all bets are off after the descriptions of the beast in ATWQ. Both series take place in a world where eagles carry people off of mountains and snakes save the day by giving people apples. It wouldn't be much larger of a stretch of the imagination for a beast which, according to the myths referenced in WCTBATH, could be tamed as long as it was kept well fed, to be commanded to do anything at all, such as pursue Olaf's submarine or conversely rescue the characters in TE. I wouldn't expect that particular possibility to ever be confirmed, but I don't see why it shouldn't be entertained in the world that Handler has created, which clearly does not follow strict laws of science or reason.

[cwm]

From the end of Chapter 8:
the desperate voyages of the Quagmire triplets, who at that very moment were in circumstances just as dark although quite a bit damper than the Baudelaires'...

Is this line a mistake, a hangover from a previous version where the Quagmires had not yet been taken by the Great Unknown (or had another fate entirely), or Handler's actual intention? Coupled with the implication at the end of TGG that Lemony does know exactly what the Unknown is, if we take the line at face value, is he here revealing more about its nature than he intends to?

[Dante]

I recall that that's the generally agreed upon interpretation, yes. Regardless of exactly what happened to the Quagmires out at sea, alive or dead, it's very unlikely that they would be anything but dark and damp at that moment in the narrative. I would agree that it reads rather like a mistake, though; or more likely, like one of Handler's occasional lines which are meant to be misleadingly ambiguous but actually overemphasise an erroneous interpretation. Consider, for instance, the point near the end of TGG where he lists "the Baudelaire parents" and "the woman I happened to love" as separate individuals (pp. 310-311); I'd also point to the line in the Dear Reader letter for The End which promises "a truly haunting secret about the Baudelaire parents," which I don't really accept as having materialised.

[Uncle Algernon]

That's a good point, Dante. Still, it must be said that on the face of it, if they'd been chewed up to bits, it would be significantly more unlikely to still refer to whatever was left in the Beast's stomach as "the Quagmires". 

Mind, the Jonah allusion earlier is worth bearing mind. Could be the Great Unknown swallowed, but didn't kill. Maybe the Great Unknown is Monstro or something. 

[cwm]

The line has always sat with me rather oddly, though, because from Snicket's perspective he has sworn never to reveal any detail of the true nature of the Question Mark, so to toss out something like that - it is difficult to find a reading of the line other than the Quagmires are alive - so casually goes against that, whereas from Daniel Handler's perspective the whole point of the Question Mark is that we know nothing of its true nature.

[Grace]

Oct 19, 2018 9:34:54 GMT -5 Uncle Algernon said:

That's a good point, Dante. Still, it must be said that on the face of it, if they'd been chewed up to bits, it would be significantly more unlikely to still refer to whatever was left in the Beast's stomach as "the Quagmires". 

Mind, the Jonah allusion earlier is worth bearing mind. Could be the Great Unknown swallowed, but didn't kill. Maybe the Great Unknown is Monstro or something. 

Yeah, but chewed to bits or not, the Quagmires would still be in a place that's dark and damp. Ugh, what a morbid thought. I don't think it's un-Snicketlike.