Discussion: A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS // Book 13 and Wrap-Up

Note: Over the past four Mondays, I’ve discussed the first twelve books of A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS (the links are here, here, here and here). Today I’ll be talking about the final book in the series. 

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

THE END

At last we come to the close—the moment we’ve all been waiting for…or something dramatic like that. So, let’s talk about THE END. 

The Ambiguity. I think more than any other book in the series, THE END has taken a lot of heat. Dissatisfied people slam it for being a lazy, depressing, inconclusive conclusion. Admittedly, Lemony Snicket does not choose to answer all the questions that have arisen throughout the course of the series, and he certainly leaves a lot of mysteries unsolved. So I understand that if you’re coming into the final installment hoping for answers, you’re going to be disappointed. But I think those who insult Lemony Snicket on this count are the ones missing the point. Because, you see, Mr. Snicket did all of this on purpose. Which means it’s up to us to figure out why. 

As I have mentioned before, the Baudelaires have been through an enormous amount of trauma, and they have faced so much during their short life that they have, quite frankly, forgotten what it means to be safe and secure. They are tired, and Count Olaf has been breathing down their necks for ages. And you have to remember that time seems to pass more slowly for younger people than it does for adults, and that everything that happens when you are young will have much more of an impact on your psyche than it would when you are older. So, in other words, what they have experienced is significant. 

In the end, when Count Olaf dies, the children find themselves suddenly released from their torment. Sure, they will have to worry about their damaged reputations, when and if they do reach land after leaving the island where they ended up marooned for a year. They will have to find jobs and buy homes and make friends and all that fun stuff. Regardless, the main source of their continued trauma has ceased to exist. But that doesn’t mean they’re immediately going to be okay. 

A lot of people seem to have been hoping for an ending where everything gets tied up neatly and happily. But let me tell you something. You can’t endure that much prolonged suffering without sustaining damage. It doesn’t work that way. Yes, Count Olaf will no longer be able to go out and actively cause the children new hurt. But that doesn’t mean what he’s done will suddenly be undone by his passing. If only it would work that way in life—then most of our troubles wouldn’t exist. Unfortunately, the Baudelaire parents will remain dead. The children will still bear the weight of trusting their guardians and protectors, only to be failed time and time again. They will still walk around, every day, knowing no one cared enough to make a difference. And they will still suffer the guilt of all the bad things they themselves have done—both intentionally and unintentionally. None of that will go away now that Olaf is gone. 

So slapping on a happy ending according to popular terms would be dishonest. And if there’s anything we’ve learned from how these books relate to children is that Mr. Snicket is far from dishonest. As much as it might not sit well with us, the ending Lemony Snicket gives to his characters is the happiest ending that he could, in all honesty, write for them. Yes, the Baudelaire children are strong, and knowing their track record, it seems that they will make it, that they will do well. I believe they will continue to survive and thrive because that is who they are—because what they have already gone through should have broken them, but it didn’t. But to pretend that it won’t take time for them to be happy again is to write a lesser story for the sake of warm fuzzies. And I, for one, am glad Lemony Snicket did not do that. 

True, he could have tacked on an epilogue showing the children old and content. But would that even fit with the tone of the series? I think not. Personally, I believe an add-on like that would also feel dishonest because it would have to ignore, almost completely, the years, maybe even decades, it would take for the children to move on. I much prefer the ending the way it is—stating the truth and pretending nothing. 

What about all the unanswered questions, Liz? Isn’t it sloppy writing to introduce all that mystery and then leave the readers hanging? 

In most cases, it probably would be the mark of a writer who got in over their head. But keep in mind that Lemony Snicket himself is just a character in A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS. While he knows more about the Baudelaires’ story than even they do, he is still piecing together what he has found through extensive research after the fact. He is by no means omniscient. So to give us all the answers would be to break from the entire mold of the series—to break character—and I’m glad he didn’t do that. In order to give the readers what they really wanted, Lemony Snicket (I should really say Daniel Handler) would have had to sacrifice the entire point of the ending (or, at least, the point as I perceive it) which is: It’s important to know that we rarely get all the answers we feel we need in life. 

The Main Villain. Okay, now that we’ve taken care of that, let’s talk about the main villain in the story—the biggest bad guy. Who do you think that would be? 

Is it Count Olaf? Many of you will probably agree that he is the main villain, and you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong in assuming that. I mean, Count Olaf is definitely the main antagonist. He is the one who actively and continually introduces the children to trauma. He is the one who does his level best to hurt the children. 

But I would contend here (and you’re free to disagree with me) that Count Olaf is not the main bad guy. Instead, I would say that Mr. Poe is. Let me explain. Count Olaf is like a dog eating unattended meat—he sees something he wants and he just goes after it like it’s instinct, like he doesn’t know any better. He has chosen to be evil, no question about it. So I would argue that Mr. Poe is worse because Mr. Poe is supposed to be the good guy—he does know better—but he still chooses to do all the wrong things. 

Mr. Poe is supposed to protect the children. He says he will protect them, and maybe on some level he really does believe he’ll do his job. But not only does he fail, he doesn’t even try. Instead, he blames the children for their misfortunes, treats them like they’re responsible for losing each and every home they come to, and acts as though it is their fault that Count Olaf is after them. Later on when the newspapers are spreading lies about the children, Mr. Poe buys into those false reports without even hearing the children’s side of the story. And despite the evidence of his own eyes, he blames the Baudelaires for the death of Dewey Denouement. Through it all, Mr. Poe, the guy who is supposed to be their savior, is the one who always condemns them and always lets them down. Nobody expects Count Olaf to behave, but because they do expect Mr. Poe to be the good guy, his wrongdoings cause more damage in the end. 

The Libraries. Beyond the literary references and the often humorous explanations for more difficult vocabulary words, Snicket features a library of sorts in every book. 

In the BAD BEGINNING, the children find escape and legal help in Justice Strauss’s library. 

In THE REPTILE ROOM, the children find life-saving information in Uncle Monty’s herpetological library. 

In THE WIDE WINDOW Klaus uses Aunt Josephine’s grammatical library to decipher an important note.

In THE MISERABLE MILL, Violet discovers relevant information on hypnosis (just in the nick of time) using the mill’s library. 

In THE AUSTERE ACADEMY, Violet, Klaus, Sunny and the triplets research ways to make their lives more comfortable using the academy’s library. 

In THE ERSATZ ELEVATOR the children use Esme’s library in an effort to save the Quagmire triplets. 

In THE VILE VILLAGE, the children learn about mechanics from Hector’s secret library in order to fix the hot air balloon that is supposed to be their salvation. 

In THE HOSTILE HOSPITAL the children discover information in the hospital’s library of records about the possibility that one of their parents might still be alive. 

In THE CARNIVOROUS CARNIVAL, the children find the location of the second-to-last V.F.D. safe place in Madam LuLu’s archival library. 

In THE SLIPPERY SLOPE Klaus uses the ruined V.F.D. library to decipher an important code. 

In THE GRIM GROTTO Violet and Klaus use Fiona’s mycological library to save Sunny’s life. 

In THE HOTEL DENOUEMENT, the hotel IS a library, so to speak, but more importantly, there is also Dewey’s secret library which temporarily represents hope, freedom, and answers for the children. 

And finally, in THE END, the children find solitude and salvation in Ishmael’s secret library. 

Each library is tied to some sort of positive emotion, whether hope or safety or comfort or anything in-between. But the Baudelaires’ experiences with libraries as the series progresses also tracks their emotional growth and change. Despite their initial suffering, the library is a safe place with all the answers they need. However, as the story continues and they endure more and more, libraries remain wonderful places, but they no longer offer all the solutions to life. That’s one of the sadder parts of growing up. When we are younger, the world seems simpler and safer, something that can be solved by a story or two. But when we grow older, we gradually realize that the world is far more complicated than we could have ever dreamed, and that even though we can escape it and work to make it better, we cannot fix it—not completely. Stories will always be wonderful, and they will always have great impact, but they will never be the full solution. 

In Conclusion. A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS is long and dark and humorous, yes, but it is deep as well. Throughout this five-part series, I have tried to show you just how deep it really is, and as much as I have highlighted, I still feel I have only scratched the surface. Maybe one day, in a year or two, I will revisit the series and try again. But in the meantime, I ask you (please, and thank you) to tell everyone about it—to read it and have your kids read it (if you have kids), to recommend it to your grandparents, your siblings, your friends, your pet hamster and any one else you’d like. I ask you not to get scared away by the darkness in it so you miss out on what Lemony Snicket is saying. I ask you to think deeply. More than anything, this world needs people who think deeply. 

Well, that’s it, little coffee beans. Now it’s time for me to get back to reviewing other stories. But I’d love to know what you think of A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS. Do you agree/disagree with my thoughts? What are some deep aspects you’ve noticed in the story that I neglected to mention? What are your favorite parts? Have you read any of Lemony Snicket’s other books?

Discussion: A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS // Books 10-12

Note: Over the past three Mondays, I’ve discussed the first nine books of A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS (the links are here, here, and here). Today I’ll be talking about the next three.

 

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

 

THE SLIPPERY SLOPE // THE GRIM GROTTO // THE PENULTIMATE PERIL

Hopefully, most of you have never been punched in the nose before. Some of you have (I’m sorry). But for those of you who haven’t, let me tell you what it’s like. Between the time when knuckle collides with cartilage and the time when the pain sinks in, there is a moment where you feel this strange numbness. During that moment your body tries to decide what it wants to do—if it will drop you, weak-kneed and half conscious, or if it will let you shake it off and fight back. Of course, you know something bad has happened, but it hasn’t sunk in yet. And, in the meantime, you don’t know exactly what you’re feeling. For the Baudelaire children, these three books are like that instant before the pain hits.

Violet, Klaus, and Sunny have been through so much, but they have always had each other. THE CARNIVEROUS CARNIVAL, though, ends with their traumatic separation—Sunny trapped in Count Olaf’s clutches, and Violet and Klaus hurtling down a mountain pass to their seemingly inevitable deaths. It feels like, from that moment till the moment THE PENULTIMATE PERIL ends, the world is just ringing from the force of a great blow while the Baudelaires wait for the full weight of the pain to start.

Loss of Innocence. In each installment of A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS, the children struggle against evil. But that struggle changes over time. At first, they only face external evils—the people who hurt them and the people who fail to help them—and those evils are easy to recognize. Yet as the series progresses, the categorization of evil and not-evil becomes harder. Though they have always considered themselves to be the good guys, they begin to notice a certain measure of evil in their own hearts. They discover how relatively easy it is to lie, to commit arson, and to do other morally reprehensible activities. Admittedly, they only do these things for a good cause. But they are also beginning to realize that a “good” justification doesn’t take away the guilt, or the wrong.

Now that they are entering premature adulthood, nothing is quite so black and white as it once was. People who are supposed to be noble don’t always do the right thing, and sometimes the villains surprise everyone with good deeds. Worse still, the children themselves do not know if they are more noble than villainous or if they are becoming just as bad as Count Olaf. They have fought so long and so hard, and they have survived so much, but life is finally taking its toll on them. They are becoming cynical and jaded.

The Triplets. Frank, Ernest, and Dewey physically represent the Baudelaires’ moral struggle. Frank and Dewey are good guys, while Ernest is bad, but the triplet are identical. Which means, try as they might, the Baudelaires can’t tell good and evil apart. Instead, they have to rely on their own judgment, and sometimes that judgment is flawed.

With the triplet quandary comes another hardship. Like in THE VILE VILLAGE (with Hector’s hot air balloon), the children are offered hope—hope for a good life, a way to escape all the evil around them and in them. Dewey wants to take them under his wing and see to it that all their needs are met, and for once, he doesn’t seem like the type to fail them. This time, though, the children are the ones to destroy this hope. Of all the awful things that have happened to them, this is the worst: they accidentally kill Dewey Denouement. And I’m not sure they ever figure out how to forgive themselves.

True, yes, Dewey’s death is not their fault, and if anyone is to be blamed, it should be Count Olaf. Count Olaf is the one who shoved the harpoon gun into the Baudelaire orphans hands without making sure they had a good grip on it before he let go. But no one ever tells the children that it’s not their fault they dropped the gun, it’s not their fault the gun fired when it hit the ground, and it’s definitely not their fault that the harpoon happened to kill Dewey. Regardless of how little they deserve the blame, they feel as if the fault is their own.

Failures. In THE PENULTIMATE PERIL, the children have to face almost everyone who has ever failed them since the time Mr. Poe sent them to live with Count Olaf. They run into Sir and Charles from THE MISERABLE MILL. They run into the teachers and headmaster from THE AUSTERE ACADEMY. They run into villagers from THE VILE VILLAGE. And they run into Jerome Squalor and Justice Strauss who apologize profusely for the way they have wronged the children, and who tell them just how much they want to help this time around. Once more, though, despite all their best intentions, Jerome and Justice Strauss fail the Baudelaires just as badly as before. It hurts more this time because Jerome and Justice Strauss really were trying and it still wasn’t enough. At the end of THE PENULTIMATE PERIL, it seems evident that no one will ever be able to save the Baudelaires, not from Count Olaf, not from misery, and certainly not from themselves.

The Hotel. The Hotel Denouement itself is a huge milestone in the Baudelaire children’s lives. Before now, they have always been fighting to find someplace safe to live, somewhere away from all the evil in this world. And they come to the hotel in hopes of protecting it—the last safe V.F.D location. Instead, they end up burning it to the ground. While this act of arson is necessary as a signal to V.F.D., and while the hotel had been compromised anyway, it is still significant. In a way, it is the physical communication of the one main, bitter thing the children have begun to realize over THE SLIPPERY SLOPE, THE GRIM GROTTO, and THE PENULTIMATE PERIL. For them, most of all, there is no place truly safe.

Even the most secure locations get compromised. Even the best people with the best intentions fail. They come to this hotel, and they find that every living person who has ever hurt them is staying there, as if to rub it in. And finally, it just cements their sinking suspicion that, not only will Olaf destroy their happiness and safety, but they will help him.

 

Okay, little coffee beans, that’s it for today. What are your thoughts? Have you read the series? Which book is your favorite?

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.

Discussion: A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS // Books 4-6

Note:  Last week I began my analysis of A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS by discussing the first three books. Today I’ll be talking about the next three. Also, in case you’d like to read more of my caffeine-induced ramblings, 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 MISERABLE MILL // THE AUSTERE ACADEMY // THE ERSATZ ELEVATOR

For the most part, books 3-7 in A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS follow the same basic pattern as book 2. Mr. Poe places the Baudelaire children in a new home after their previous guardian situation turns out to be a no-go. Then, while the children try to remain optimistic, Olaf shows up and wreaks havoc. With the exception of Uncle Monty’s home in THE REPTILE ROOM, the environments are already less than optimal before Olaf appears. And, of course, each book ends with the children needing a new home.

Mr. Poe. While books 2-7 do follow the same basic plot formula, the characters have plenty of room to grow and/or change. For instance, in books 1-3, Mr. Poe seems relatively willing to dig up what he deems to be a nice, new home for the children, but THE MISERABLE MILL marks the part where even that small willingness dwindles. If it weren’t bad enough that he had initially dropped the Baudelaires off with a man whose relation to the children he couldn’t remember (THE BAD BEGINNING), now he deposits the children at a lumber mill run by a man whose name he does not even know and whose face he has never seen. At this part of the story, also, he begins to spend less time making sure the children acclimate well. And his noticeable absence leaves the children open to exploitation. Were Mr. Poe invested in the Baudelaires’ lives even a tiny bit more, the children could be spared a great deal of suffering.

Likewise, at the boarding school in THE AUSTERE ACADEMY and at the penthouse in THE ERSATZ ELEVATOR, Mr. Poe performs the very least he can of his duties and dumps the children off before hurrying away to deal with other “important” things. Given what has continually happened to the children in their new homes, you would think he would do more to make extra sure that they remain safe and protected. Instead, he cares less and less. Ironically, the point where he becomes Mulctuary Money’s Vice President in Charge of Orphan Affairs (at the beginning of THE ERSATZ ELEVATOR) marks the point where he pretty much stops helping the orphans at all.

The Hypnosis. What I didn’t quite realize as a child was that ASOUE tracks the gradual effects, both negative and positive, of prolonged trauma on young people. I will cover this more in my next discussion, but for now I want to talk about Klaus’s hypnosis and how it might tie in with this.  

Twice Count Olaf’s associates hypnotize Klaus and use him to hurt both Phil (a worker at the Mill) and Charlie (co-owner of the mill). Of course, in real life, hypnosis is a little different than is commonly portrayed in movies and literature. Someone who is hypnotized will not obey orders to perform an act they would not ordinarily do willingly. In other words, if you are not a killer at heart, hypnosis cannot make you a killer. Now, it’s possible that Lemony Snicket (or should I say, Daniel Handler) was not privy to this information while he was writing THE MISERABLE MILL. But what if he did know? If we are to assume that Lemony Snicket was aware of this fact, is it possible that he was trying to say that deep down, Klaus wanted to hurt the people who didn’t care enough about him (and consequently, by not caring enough, contributed to his torment)—that the dark and bitter parts of him are being brought to life through hypnosis? Just something to think about.

Sir. Sir, the children’s guardian in THE MISERABLE MILL, sees them as both a burden and an asset. He is not willing to treat them any better than he treats his workers, and he does not treat his workers well at all.

The onus of finding out whether Sir would be a good guardian or a failure is on Mr. Poe, which means Mr. Poe should do his research. And it wouldn’t be too difficult to figure out that Sir feeds his workers gum for lunch after not providing breakfast or that he only pays them in useless coupons. Naturally, if Mr. Poe knew that, it would be worse than negligence to leave the children with a man like Sir. But the fact that Mr. Poe isn’t expecting Sir to put the children to hard labor does not negate the fact that it would be wise for him to see how the mill is run and to see whether the employees are happy or not. That alone would give him a decent idea of Sir’s character. Instead, it seems that Mr. Poe eagerly dumps the children off on the first available person and thinks no more about it. And I doubt I need to tell you how irresponsible that is.

Charles and Jerome. While Charles, from THE MISERABLE MILL, is not the children’s guardian, he is their guardian’s business partner, and he is in a perfect position to witness how they are being treated and to do something about it. The very least he could do is call the police or inform Mr. Poe that the children are being underfed and overworked, which is, by the way, ILLEGAL. Although he is polite and nice and gives the Baudelaires small snacks from time to time, his lack of action makes him complicit in Sir’s abuse of the children. His spinelessness and his avoidance of difficulties coupled with his surface kindness and his compassion, do not make him any less of a bad guy because the end result remains the same—his complacency puts the children in danger.

Jerome, on the other hand, is the children’s guardian for a time (in THE ERSATZ ELEVATOR), so he is responsible for making sure they stay safe and well. And his negligence is inexcusable. He has such an aversion to arguing, even when it is necessary, that he will not even tell a waiter that no, he doesn’t like salmon, so no, he doesn’t want a salmon puff. Even when he recognizes that the children are genuinely concerned about Olaf masquerading as Gunther the auctioneer, he does not press the issue because he does not want to argue with Esme and Olaf/Gunther. When the children show that they are determined to find and rescue the Quagmire triplets no matter the cost, he surrenders guardianship of them because he does not want to argue and he is not willing to do what he knows he needs to do, which is take care of the poor hurting children. Even when he knows they have no one, even when he had promised to take care of them when he took them on in the first place, he does not care enough to help them out in their time of need. Incidentally, he is the last guardian that the children ever have (since I don’t count the village in THE VILE VILLAGE as a guardian—and I’ll explain why next week).

The Baudelaire Children. Okay, I’ve spent a lot of time discussing the various adults who have failed the Baudelaires, but it’s time I cover the children themselves. Despite all they have been through, I think it’s safe to say that Violet, Klaus, and Sunny have unbreakable spirits. When they have to do scary things for the sake of others or for the sake of survival, such as Sunny climbing up an elevator shaft with her teeth or Violet scaling a tower using a homemade grappling hook and homemade rope, they do so willingly. If it weren’t for their intelligence, their quick-thinking, and their resourcefulness, they wouldn’t have escaped Olaf’s clutches even the first time. Basically, their ability to think on their feet is the only thing that keeps them alive and free—not the adults, not anyone else, just their innate ability to function no matter what.

While we know they have faced—and continue to face—a great deal of suffering, and while we know that suffering has left its mark on their souls, we never see them wallow. Even Lemony Snicket frequently acknowledges that they are braver and smarter and stronger than he is and that he would crumble under the pressures they withstand. True, the Baudelaires would benefit greatly from external support, such as a guardian who actually cares, and I pity them for having to suffer so very very much throughout the course of the series, but the fact that they have survived what they have survived and still manage to get out of bed (so to speak) every morning is phenomenal. Even in adversity, they thrive—Violet with her inventions, Klaus with his booksmarts and research skills, and Sunny with her fearsome toothiness and her culinary talents. They are some of the best role models you could find, and I am happy that I spent my childhood looking up to them.

 

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 three 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.

Discussion: A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS // Books 1-3

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

THE BAD BEGINNING // THE REPTILE ROOM // THE WIDE WINDOW

Starting on that fateful Christmas day years and years ago when I unwrapped the first ten books of Lemony Snicket’s A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS and, incidentally, fell down the staircase while reading THE REPTILE ROOM, this series was a staple of my childhood. As a young person, I connected very deeply with the stories, but only now, as an adult, am I beginning to understand why. So I figured I’d share my revelations with you. You’re welcome.

From the very beginning of the series, the Baudelaire children become forcibly acquainted with misery—long, drawn-out misery. When I was younger, I sometimes wondered why Lemony Snicket chose to cover such dark subject matter in a series of children’s books. Like, why not write about happy things? Don’t get me wrong—I really enjoyed the stories. I just wondered, is all. (I believe that question came from this sense I had as a child that I could handle much harder things than most little people could. I was rather pompous back then, I think.) Now I get it, though. On the one hand, I would hazard a guess that this series is meant to help adults understand what it is like for a kid to experience suffering, but on the other hand, it is also meant for kids who are suffering to see that they are not alone, that there is someone out there who not only understands but cares.

Mr. Poe. After the children lose their parents and their home in a terrible fire, their parents’ banker, Mr. Poe, is charged with finding a good home for them. He fails miserably at this job—in fact, all thirteen books in this series are pretty much a tribute to the fact that he is a horrible guardian-seeker (that’s totally a proper term). While he does take the Baudelaires in for a while before handing them off to their distant relative, Count Olaf, he offers no true support. When the children come to him with their concerns about Count Olaf, he shuts them down and does not bother to look into the matter, even though Klaus tells him that Olaf struck him.

Worse still, Mr. Poe supposedly has a chronic cough, but I believe his cold his more habit than anything since it seems that whenever one of the children has something big and important to say, something that might involve difficulty and action, Mr. Poe breaks down into one of his infamous coughing fits and then changes the subject.

Mr. Poe is the classic adult figure that so many suffering children in real life must face. He is the man who claims to care and has been charged with caring but does not really care. As long as it does not take too much effort, he will help out, but when it comes to exerting himself or digging deep or actually trying, he won’t do anything. He’s too busy with his bank or he’s too busy with coughing and he just not invested enough. Worse, he won’t take the children seriously because they are just that—children. Every time the Baudelaires warn him about Count Olaf, now that they know his evil plans, no matter how often they have been right before, he brushes them off as being too distraught or as having a tendency to see Count Olaf everywhere. His reluctance to listen to them is often what puts them in the most danger, and every time, without fail, Count Olaf escapes after being exposed and Mr. Poe does nothing to stop him. Absolutely nothing.

Like Mr. Poe, many adults downplay what children have to say because they are children or because they have been through something traumatic or just because. Adults can assume that, since children are young, they need not be trusted or listened to. So too often children with legitimate struggles, children who need help, get swept under the rug because let’s face it, kids with issues are a hassle and why bother with all that effort—all that work—when you can just cough into your handkerchief loudly enough to drown out the sound of suffering?

Count Olaf. Count Olaf is pain; he is the antagonist; he is the constant source of misery that follows the Baudelaire children around everywhere. He is the one who taints everything, the one who takes even happy moments and twists them into something awful. And no matter how hard the children try, they can never escape him. Perhaps, if they had had actual help from those in a position of authority and power, they would have been able to live happy childhoods. But no one cared enough to truly save them from Count Olaf. Instead, the vast majority of adults in the Baudelaires’ lives offered Band-Aid solutions, patted themselves on their backs, and left it at that.

But Olaf is also the adult who sees the children only as a sum of their misfortune. True, I know that he looks down on them and so chooses to talk down to them, but I don’t think it’s an accident that he refers to the Baudelaires as orphans, as if orphans are a different species of people. That’s something else that adults often do to children—label them and see them only as the sum of their suffering.  

Aunt Josephine. Aunt Josephine is so afraid of everything, she won’t even let herself or those around her live. She allows her fear to control her, and it puts the children, who are under her protection, in danger. Instead of taking care of them, which is her job, she puts her own life first. She is terrified of door knobs and welcome mats and telephones, but she isn’t frightened by the things that should truly scare her, like the fact that she lives in a house literally suspended on rickety stilts over Lake Lachrymose. Maybe if she had stopped caring so much about the things that couldn’t hurt her, and maybe if she had started focusing on the things that still could, she would have been able to be a proper guardian. Maybe if she hadn’t been such a sniveling coward, to the point where she couldn’t even bring herself to use the phone in order to call the police, she wouldn’t have sold out the children to Count Olaf in order to save her own skin.

But I think in some ways it’s easier for her to be afraid of the small manageable things, the ones that—deep down—she knows can’t really harm her, so she doesn’t have to think about the big things, the ones that can harm her, the ones she feels she can’t avoid. Why else would she live teetering on the brink of a precipice yet refuse to use the stove because it might catch fire?

 

Ultimately, it seems to me that A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS is a veiled lesson about the many ways in which adults fail children—a muted harangue of sorts. This is why I especially appreciate the fact that Lemony Snicket pulls in so much intelligent material, as though he is telling his audience how he believes that they are more than just young people, that they matter, and that they are smarter than adults often assume. While he explains bigger vocabulary words along the way (which really helped me when I was a young person, even though sometimes his explanations wouldn’t count for proper definitions) he doesn’t make the mistake of assuming that, because children might need a few words defined for them, they can’t understand big things like death, loss, suffering, and abandonment.

Finally, beyond the hard, powerful themes, Lemony Snicket can’t seem to keep from pulling in literary and classical references, like the “Virginian Wolfsnake” (bonus points if you get that) and Brett Helquist’s illustration of Damocles Dock depicting an arch with a sword hanging over the Baudelaire children’s heads (even more points if you get that reference without clicking this link here)—all of which serve to deepen the story.

Okay, little coffee beans, that’s it for today. I will be covering the next three books in a week or two. In the meantime, what are your thoughts? Have you read the series? Do you agree/disagree with my analysis? What literary/classical references have you noticed in the books? Which installment is your favorite? Which character is your favorite?