Discussion: A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS // Books 7-9

Note: Over the past two Mondays, I’ve discussed the first six books of A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS (the links are here and here). Today I’ll be talking about the next three. Also, in case you’d like to read more of my caffeine-induced ramblings, and in case you missed it earlier, here’s a link to my guest post on Opal’s lovely blog.

 

Warning: This will be a VERY SPOILERY discussion of A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS. VERY SPOILERY.

THE VILE VILLAGE // THE HOSTILE HOSPITAL // THE CARNIVEROUS CARNIVAL

 

When I was a child, without fully understanding why, I knew that THE VILE VILLAGE marked the turning point in ASOUE. From THE VILE VILLAGE on, the series gets darker, and deeper, and—dare I say it?—better. So let’s talk about this.

The Darkness. I’ve come across a bunch of negative reviews of ASOUE out there, including a fair deal of disapproval aimed at the darkness and the ambiguity. People have expressed their belief that the difficult elements in this story are not suitable for children or that kids couldn’t possibly enjoy a story with those aspects. And I get that. Really, I do. Because, for a while, I stopped understanding ASOUE as much as I did before, and I wondered if the books were too depressing. But, at that same time, (I was sixteen) I also stopped thinking as deeply, I started writing more annoyingly pretentious-sounding stories, and someone who meant a lot to me died. With the benefit of hindsight, I realize that the books weren’t lacking. I was the one lacking. I had temporarily lost my focus.

To take the attitude that children cannot handle the level of negativity in ASOUE—to say that they should be shielded—is to borrow too much of Mr. Poe’s mindset, in my opinion. It’s to forget how capable children can be, how deep, how thoughtful, if given the chance. Like the pain of childbirth, I suspect that adults tend to forget the pain of growing up—that niggling feeling of being too big for your mind and too big for your body.  

Your childhood is your most formative stage. Most everything has a bigger impact. All the contributing elements in your environment join forces to shape the person you will be in adulthood. So, it’s important for children to understand, sooner rather than later, that the world does not operate in black and white and that suffering does not mean the end of a person. True, yes, don’t expose young people to something they aren’t ready for. There’s no need to watch TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE with your three-year-old because Liz said not to shelter your children. (News flash: Liz doesn’t know everything. She just pretends to know everything.) But if you shield young people from reality for too long, you will only raise more people like Mr. Poe, adults who hide from the ugly truth—who cough into their handkerchiefs—so they don’t have to get their hands dirty and help people. You will only create adults who don’t understand what the world is really like.

Mr. Poe. THE VILE VILLAGE marks the point where Mr. Poe officially reaches the end of his meager patience with the children. In his mind, he has found home after home for the Baudelaire orphans, and time after time they have caused trouble. No, seriously, that’s what he thinks. Never mind that Count Olaf has been after the children’s fortune since the beginning, that he has caused all this trouble himself, and that he is the one who should be punished for his actions. Instead, Mr. Poe blames the children for their misfortunes. According to him, they are the trouble-makers, the culprits who continuously put his bank’s name in a bad light, the individuals who make his job thirteen times harder. If it weren’t for the Baudelaires’ tendency to kick up a fuss and to see Count Olaf everywhere, he wouldn’t have to keep finding new homes for them. And so on and so forth.

I guess, since the Baudelaires are children, and since they are orphans, they are particularly vulnerable, which makes them easy targets for the blame game. Why on earth would Mr. Poe want to recognize his own incompetence and blame himself for all the times he has utterly failed the children? And why would he blame Count Olaf, since Count Olaf wouldn’t have been such a problem had Mr. Poe done his job properly? No, the blame must land squarely on the Baudelaires’ shoulders.

So here, at this final juncture in this final formulaic installment before Snicket delves into unchartered territory, Mr. Poe cares so little he is willing to dump the children off on a village. It doesn’t even matter which village. Let the children pick one, any one, and he will leave them there without fact-checking or researching beforehand. Don’t first make sure this is a good place. Don’t even take the children over in person. Just send them on their merry way and warn them that this is their last chance not to cause trouble and make the bank look bad. Good job, Mr. Poe—you get a gold star.

The Village. Now we come to the point where I argue that the people in the Village of Fowl Devotees don’t even count as guardians. In my opinion, a guardian, however flawed they might be, is someone who takes you into their home and at least cares for your basic needs. A guardian is not someone who dumps you on someone else, in the way that the village council dumps the children on Hector. Hector may be the one who takes care of the children, because he was assigned to the role, but he was never intended to be the sole caregiver. The village as a whole had volunteered for that job. And instead of fulfilling that responsibility, the only remotely guardian-like connection they have with the children is in making them do all the village chores.

The Rules. The people of the village have so many rules, it’s nearly impossible to do anything without breaking one. Worse than that, they are uncompromising and unforgiving in their pursuit of the law. They fail to recognize that human beings need freedom and wiggle room in order to live life fully and completely. Like a lot of people, they find it easier just to have those in authority dictate all their actions so they don’t have to think for themselves, so they don’t have to deviate from established patterns, and so they don’t have to care about others.

The Baudelaires’ Struggle. After THE VILE VILLAGE, where another person who was supposed to care fails them miserably (Hector), the Baudelaires find themselves at a new emotional low. To have the hope of escape offered to them (the hot air balloon and the freedom from suffering it represented), and then to have that taken away, along with their friends (the Quagmire triplets), is to rub salt in the wound. They have been resourceful and they have tried their hardest and they have contributed their best, and they still end up worse off than they were before. They do not know if anyone will rescue them, they do not know if their friends are safe, and they do not know if they will be thrown in jail for a crime they did not commit.

THE HOSTILE HOSPITAL finds them on the run from the law, in more danger than they have ever faced before, with enemies on every side. The world is darkening around them, and they fear they are becoming dark with it. Only now do the children begin to see how truly awful supposedly non-villainous people are. In V.F.D. the villagers, who condemn murder, are eager to burn the children at the stake. In Heimlich Hospital the audience, which condemns murder, is eager to see doctors perform a craniectomy on Violet. And in THE CARNIVEROUS CARNIVAL the onlookers, who condemn murder, are eager to watch lions devour one of the freaks in the freak show. Even the supposedly good people are not good. The law-abiding citizens are not good. No one is good.

The children begin to doubt their own innocence in all of this. As they strike out into the bloodthirsty world on their own, they are forced to make decisions they are not always proud of. They trick poor, old Hal and steal the keys to his library of records even though they hate lying to the elderly man. They disguise themselves as freaks and lie about their identities. They snoop. The commit arson. They begin to wonder if they are turning into Count Olaf. Surrounded by adults who blind themselves to reality, adults who accept what they are told without asking questions, adults who embrace and worship their limitations, adults who enjoy hurting others, how are the Baudelaires supposed to grow up to be good people? Since the death of their parents, no one has set a decent example for them, and they have been forced to forge their own moral compasses. (Don’t worry, I will definitely cover this topic more in my next ASOUE discussion.)

 

So yes, I can see where this sort of story would bother adults—because it reflects reality. Even the good guys are bad guys. Adults fail children just as they fail other adults. Too often children have to sink or swim on their own, to figure out their morality in a sea of ambiguity. But that’s the beauty of A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS. It’s more than just a condemnation of those who do not care enough. It is a wake-up call. And that, more than anything, is why it is well worth reading.

Okay, little coffee beans, that’s it for today. What are your thoughts? Have you read the series? Which book is your favorite? I will be posting two more discussions on A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS, and I will try to encompass as much as possible, but if there is a character or place or theme from ASOUE that you especially want me to discuss and are concerned I won’t cover, feel free to let me know. As always, I welcome your feedback.