#*few

Here's what we know about the shoemaker, directly from the book:

1. Near the end we get more details about the shoemaker's story and find out more about her and her sister. Lemony says that "she was good with her hands and could fashion all kinds of ingenious things at the camp, with the meager materials which were around."

2. She wasn't always a shoemaker, but had to become one in the prison camp.

3. She has a sister

4. When she was younger, she spent time "walking a terrible landscape".

5. Lemony refers to her as an acquaintance and a friend. Not an associate.

6. She's important enough to Lemony for him to dedicate the book to her.

So what I thought of was, maybe Violet is the shoemaker. She's an inventor, so the description in point 1 fits her perfectly. Throughout the asoue books, this is exactly what she did all the time; making inventions with the few materials she had available. The shoemaker wasn't always a shoemaker, so it's definitely possible for it to be Violet, as she has the skills Lemony mentions.

For point 4, this could refer to the Baudelaire's time in the Hinterlands.

Point 5, Violet was never one of Lemony's associates because she was never fully a member of vfd. Lemony always refers to anyone in the sugar bowl generation as an associate, so if the shoemaker was one of them, why would he not refer to the shoemaker using that term? So more than likely, the shoemaker has to be someone else. We don't know what happened to the Baudelaires but if Lemony and Bea II did become reunited, then at some point Violet and Lemony could have become acquainted and could have even become close enough for him to refer to her as a friend.

If Violet is the shoemaker, this would make Sunny the sister who was at the camp with her and who then died of starvation I am crying right now thinking about this But think about it this way too, since cooking was Sunny's special skill it would make it more tragic if the thing that lead to her death was an absence of the thing she loved to do.

Finally for the book dedication, it seems fitting to have it be dedicated to someone central to Lemony's life. He dedicated every book in asoue to Beatrice, the love of his life, showing that he doesn't dedicate his books to just anyone. It had to be someone of high importance and the people most important to Lemony would be his associates, and the Baudelaires. Most of his associates are gone now, and I already mentioned how he never refers to the shoemaker as an associate anyways. It only makes sense for him to dedicate this book, then, to one of the Baudelaires who he spent so much time following and doing research on, as well as being Beatrice's children.

Finally, in TBL Bea is looking for the Baudelaires who were separated from her. If they ended up in the prison camp under some unknown circumstances, this would explain not only where they disappeared to, but why they couldn't leave to be reunited with Bea. Violet left the camp at some point and became acquainted with Lemony and told him her story at some point after that.

BRO

are we talking the characters of COA as a TEAM? Because 🤡🤡🤡 you all know I live for found families and snarky banter and tension and angst so uhh,,,, yeah????

and I can see it working, too. Winston as Fury (the grumpy, ruthless “dad” of the team), Charon as Coulson, John certainly fits the haunted leader role like Cap and Santino....is Santino like Tony or??? 😂😂 I love it if it were tho. Because they don’t outright hate each other, it’s just fundamental differences in character. And V. V stands between them too. So even if there’s respect and reliance and maybe even trust when needed, there’s always that unspoken “you hurt her” between them. The fact that they both have feelings for her doesn’t help, either.

But GOSH. Them working together??? Protecting each other? Team dinners after? One of them getting hurt??? The opportunities for angst ALONE??? What if we have Thanos like situation and one or two of them get snapped? OH GOOD LORD. The angst is amazing either way. The fight?? The reunion after the snap??? What if it was V who got snapped and Santino just sees her across the battlefield. His expression crumpling at seeing her alive after 5 years. Pulling her to him and holding her close, breathing her in. John,,,unable to speak over the lump in his throat at seeing her alive again. He felt so guilt, so responsible for what happened but she’s okay,,she’s fine and it’s like he can breathe again.