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.
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.
