#lstua

I would like to dedicate this theory to @snicketstrange, as well as credit him for the concluding ideas of this theory.

After TCWOCL Part 7, TMM Part 1, I noticed a theorist's window of opportunity. In the scene where Georgina hypnotises Klaus, one of the pictures she shows him is the picture of the burnt remains of his home: the Baudelaire mansion after the fire.

She asks him, "Fire or accident?" ... I'll lay out my thoughts on this in a separate post.

In TBB:RE, Lemony describes a part of his research at the Baudelaire mansion:

pp. 12-13 Here and there, the children could see traces of the home they had loved: fragments of their grand piano, an elegant bottle in which Mr. Baudelaire had kept brandy, the scorched cushion of the windowseat where their mother liked to sit and read.

Curiously enough, Mr. Baudelaire's brandy bottle was found on the remians of the dining table, with no coasters nearby. This would indicate that either the coasters were burned beyond recognition, or the Baudelaires had received a visitor who had no manners whatsoever.

The picture in the series (when paused at the correct moment!) can be identified due to the large 'portion' of grand piano. But @snicketstrange has helped me come to the conclusion that:

Brett Helquist is NOT in the Netflix series; instead, it is the photographer of LSTUA, Julie Blattberg.

In LSTUA, we get this:

Crucially, this proves: the fact that Mr. Helquist made an illustration does not mean that the only source of images available are the ones he created.

Plus, logic (@snicketstrange, thank you for providing this logic 😅) dictates that photography and film are closer than drawing (illustration) and film.

Therefore:

THEORY: Julie Blattberg, Lemony's photographer, is a part of the Netflix canon.

Possibly:

As an undercover member of The Daily Punctilio

As herself, helping Lemony and Beatrice II write 'A Series of Unfortunate Events'.

With help from @snicketstrange,

One of the rare photos of The Librarian of VFD.

Taken in The Mortmain Mountains Headquarters before Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire were born.

I'm rereading Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography. Some interesting details are coming to mind. 'The Little Snicket Lad' is a song that tells a story which, according to Lemony Snicket, is inconsistent with reality.

Lyrics Verse One:

On a charming little cattle farm Near a pretty deadly lake, Was a very pregnant woman, And her husband, known as Jake. Though they lived in a big mansion, Down Robber Road a tad, It was at the farm the lady Bore the little Snicket lad.

Chorus:

And then they took him, yea they took him, They took him far away, They took him in the dead of night Beneath a moon of gray. They took him from the kitchen Like you'd take a midnight snack, The V.F.D. they took him, And they never brought him back.

Verse Two:

He was lively, and intelligent, And drank a lot of milk, His crib was made of silver, And his diapers sewn from silk. Both his siblings watched him And his mother, and his dad, But someone else was watching O'er the little Snicket lad.

Chorus:

And then they took him, yea they took him, They took him far away, They took him in the dead of night Beneath a moon of gray. They took him from the kitchen Like you'd take a midnight snack, The V.F.D. they took him, And they never brought him back.

Verse Three:

One evening Jake was chopping wood, And his wife was at the mill, The siblings two were drinking tea, And the house was very still. They came in through the windows, Not the door, which was the fad, A long black car was parked outside For the little Snicket lad. Chorus:

And then they took him, yea they took him, They took him far away, They took him in the dead of night Beneath a moon of gray. They took him from the kitchen Like you'd take a midnight snack, The V.F.D. they took him, And they never brought him back. Coda:

"When we grab you by the ankles, Where our mark is to be made, You'll soon be doing noble work, Although you won't be paid. When we drive away in secret, You'll be a volunteer, So don't scream when we take you: The world is quiet here."

Alternate version

The Second Half of the Chorus, as sung in the North, is as follows:

They took him from the kitchen, And dropped him on the way, He fell upon the darkened ground, And tried to crawl away.

Regarding the alternative version, Lemony Snicket himself later wrote by handwriting that the note at the end should be observed. The note includes a picture of a baby crawling. This is strange because Lemony wrote to Dr. Patton that he was not a baby when he was captured, yet he later seemingly included a picture of an actual baby with the transcription of the alternative version. It’s as if he discovered something real within the lyrics of the song, something that contradicted his own memories.

For a while, I thought Lemony had been kidnapped twice and that the tattoo was done when he was still a baby, which would explain why the baby in the photo is hiding his ankle. However, Dante pointed out the flaws in this theory. In R's letter to Lemony in chapter 2, she seems to indicate that the tattoos were given when both she and Lemony were young children, not babies.

Now, I present another theory: the "Snicket" referred to in the song is not Lemony Snicket but an older member of the Snicket family, someone Lemony never met and who isn’t even shown in the family tree. After all, a nursery rhyme about Lemony Snicket, created by society and known in the North of the country before he even got married? That doesn’t make sense. It's quite likely that the song's origin is much older and describes a time when VFD literally kidnapped babies who never returned home.

It is interesting that the song implies the Snicket in question was born with a silver spoon in their mouth, which does not seem to be true for Lemony Snicket. Other passages indicate that there was indeed a Snicket fortune at some point, but that must have been during the time described in the song. While there are similarities between the song and Lemony’s life, there are also significant differences.

What Lemony discovered later in life, and what he decided to attach to the file containing the letter he would send to Dr. Patton, was a photo that portrayed a shocking truth to him: VFD had indeed kidnapped babies in the past, against their parents' will.

So, more and more my theory of the Great Hiatus seems to make more sense. Recalling, I defend the idea that the Masked Ball where Lemony was arrested happened many years after the main events described in TE. The Ball happened between the publication of the book TWW and TMM in the asoue universe. An important concept is that the books were originally published over many years.

Although TBB began to be written during the main events of asoue, TBB and TRR were only published at least 2 years after the main events described in asoue. TWW was published sometime shortly after TRR. But TMM was published many years after the publication of TWW. These years of hiatus, is what I call the Great Hiatus. Some events in the asoue universe that happened during the Great Hiatus were the Masked Ball, one of Lemony's false deaths, one of Lemony's escapes abroad, the closing of Prufrock-Prep, and evidently the sending of the original TMM to the editor.During the Masked Ball, Lemony tried to tell a supposed Beatrice something about Count Olaf.

According to this chronology, the only thing that would be relevant for a supposed Beatrice to know was the fact that "Count Olaf is Dead." Olaf died on a desert island. Olaf's death was not known to the general public, but it was known to Lemony, as evidently Lemony was on the island.

But the right question is: why would Lemony think it important that this information should reach a supposed Beatrice? That's because the reason that would lead a supposed Beatrice not to expose herself to the public was the fact that, in theory, Beatrice believed that as long as her death was accepted as true, at least one of her children would be kept alive by Count Olaf so he could recover the inheritance when the surviving child turned 18. If Beatrice showed herself alive, the inheritance would not be any of her children's but Beatrice's herself. So none of the children would have a reason to be kept alive by Count Olaf. Therefore she, in theory, needed to be regarded as dead. And that's why Lemony emphasizes so much that Beatrice is dead, even though he believes she may be alive. He tries not to alarm her and reinforce her pretense.

I want to make clear that all this is valid both in the case where Beatrice survived the fire and in the case where she died in the fire. Because it doesn't matter the truth, what matters is what Lemony believes to be true, and what he decides to do with his beliefs: reveal them or distort them for a greater good he believes to be a greater good. Lemony believes that lying is sometimes good and necessary. Even if he were right to say that Beatrice was dead, when he wrote that, he believed she was alive. So, he lied when he said she was dead. And all this can be seen by analyzing Sunny's age.

How old was Sunny when she arrived on the island? I can say more than 1 year, because of her behavior and the events mentioned in the story. Lemony claims he spent 14 years trying to talk about Count Olaf with Beatrice. But we have a limit for this subject to be relevant. When Sunny turned 18, if she was still in Olaf's clutches, he would find a way to cash the money and kill Sunny afterward. So, it wouldn't make sense for Beatrice to hide from Olaf anymore. If after discovering Olaf was dead, Lemony still tried to pass this information on to Beatrice, it's because he believed Beatrice believed Olaf had killed Klaus and Violet and preserved Sunny to cash the money. (It is interesting that Olaf tried to do exactly that at the end of TCC). Considering that Sunny spent 1 year on the island and Lemony didn't get there during that time, we can conclude that Sunny was at least 2 years old when she left the island, with the most likely being that she was 3 or 4 years old when she left the island. If Lemony got to the island during the year that followed and then found out that Olaf was dead (and also found the Baudelaires' notes), we can conclude that he spent the next 14 years trying to pass this information on to Beatrice, according to his own words, until the day of the Masked Ball.

This means that in the meantime he published 3 books, purposefully lying to the general public by saying that Beatrice was dead, when he believed she was alive.

That's why he couldn't complete the sentence for the general public. "Count Olaf is dead" would reveal that he believed Beatrice was alive.

It is interesting to note however, that evidence points to Beatrice in fact dying in her house fire, and that the woman Lemony thought was Beatrice was actually an imposter. Apparently that's what R meant to Lemony in the letter recorded in LSTUA chapter 2. "That girl was flammable." "Analyze these photos." "Impostors nearby in disguise". "Beatrice is far from reclaiming lost property." These hidden messages seem to be trying to tell Lemony, "Beatrice really is dead." And R only had to pass this message on to Lemony because he believed Beatrice was alive. This belief of Lemony's also explains why he was so alarmed when studying the city's underground, because he investigated possible survivors of fires hidden in fountains.

Short theory:

The sentence on page 13 states: "Because of the evidence discussed on page nine, experts now suspect that there may in fact be one survivor of the fire, but the survivor's whereabouts are unknown".

It can't be Quigley Quagmire, as the file explicitly states "one survivor," not "another survivor." Given that Isadora and Duncan Quagmire's survival is public knowledge, we're not discussing the Quagmire mansion fire. The clues point to the Baudelaire mansion fire and the alleged arsonist, Lemony Snicket, who has also been declared dead. This leads us to believe that Lemony, initially presumed dead and guilty, had his death status questioned by experts. Kit and Jacques Snicket, as shown in LSTUA and TCC, are on a mission to clear Lemony's name and confirm his survival, despite their grave doubts.

The subject of Biblical Allusions in ASOUE has been a very controversial one. It is the reason the series has been banned in some places, and it's the main reason for the series' criticism.

There are some very clear Biblical parallels in ASOUE, e.g. The Baudelaires receiving an apple from Ink in The End (alluding to Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden).

However, there is something that has caught my attention - 3 characters in particular - Ike Anwhistle, Ishamel and Jacob Snicket.

Ike's full name is Isaac, giving:

Ishmael, Isaac and Jacob

Which are the names of 3 Biblical characters.

Ishmael and Isaac were half-brothers and Jacob was Isaac's younger son - but they all stem from Abraham.

But how does this fit into ASOUE?

Well, in the Bible, the age order is:

Ish > Ike > Jake

But in ASOUE, it's:

Jake >= Ish > Ike

However, if we consider the numerous clear allusions to the Bible throughout the series, we could also interpret this as saying:

The Anwhistles, Snickets and Ishmael are RELATED to each other.

Of course, given the family tree in LSTUA, we see that most members of V.F.D. have some ludicrous connection to each other, but my theory is their genealogy is CLOSER to each other's than everyone else in the organisation.

This is why, in book canon, there is a CHANCE (albeit very slim) that Josephine MAYBE survives.

Also, thinking about this has led me to think of other things:

If Ishmael doesn't have a last name, and readers don't know what Bertrand's surname was (before he married Beatrice)...

Is Ishmael Bertrand's grandfather?

This would explain his overtaking of The Island - he may THINK Bertrand is far too child-like and irresponsible, and is unaware of the dangers of the world, allowing him to act 'in loco parentis' to Bertrand.

It's possible, but it's also just an idea.

Maybe I've gone to Very Far Distances with this one...

For many years, I have pondered how to satisfactorily resolve the Miss K Enigma, the Prufrock Prep Enigma, the Masked Ball Enigma, the R's Letter Enigma, and (the greatest of them all) the Secret Letter Enigma in TSS.

Let me clarify each of these enigmas and how far I have solved them.

Let's start with what is canonically proven: Despite Lemony Snicket starting to write TBB (and possibly TRR) around the time of the main events described in ASOUE, he only managed to publish these books (and TWW) several years later. After the publication of TWW, there was a hiatus of many years until TMM was published. This period is commonly referred to as the "Great Hiatus". You can find a detailed discussion and proof of the Great Hiatus in the canonically-accepted source here: asoue.proboards.com/thread/36354/change-lemonys-life-submitted-jean

Understanding the Great Hiatus is key to resolving the Masked Ball Enigma, the R's Letter Enigma, the Miss K Enigma, and the Prufrock Prep Enigma. However, they cannot be fully solved through this alone. Let's consider each case separately.

The Prufrock Prep Enigma: In TAA, Lemony claims that Prufrock Prep has been closed for many years at the time of the book's publication. And it was closed after Mrs. Bass was arrested for theft. However, in LSTUA, we part with an event that indicates that an ASOUE book had already been published when Prufrock Prep was still operating, and Mrs. Bass was not yet arrested. Carmelita Spats was still studying there. The enigma is: how could Prufrock Prep be operating if ASOUE had already been published, and Lemony stated in TAA that the school had been closed for many years? More than that:  According to LSTUA, in Chapter 9, an enemy of Lemony sought information about the reptiles from Uncle Monty's collection in the book TRR. This book was in the library of Prufrock Prep, at that time Prufrock Prep was open and running. However, in writing the TAA book, Lemony says Prufrock Prep was closed many years ago. 

The answer is: considering the great hiatus that occurred between the publication of TWW and TMM, it's quite possible that Prufrock Prep continued to operate for some time after the publication of TBB, TRR, and TWW. After the publication of one or more of these books, the teacher known as Miss K was at Prufrock Prep, bringing with her one of the already published ASOUE books. After this event, Prufrock Prep was closed. A few years passed, and then Lemony published TMM and TAA and could then claim that the school had been closed for many years. This explains why one of Lemony's enemies found the TRR book at Prufrock Prep. The book had already been published in Lemony's universe, and the school was still in operation when this enemy was there. However, years later, when Lemony wrote TAA, the school had already been closed for many years.

Miss K Enigma: In Nero's letter to Carmelita Spats' parents, which is printed in Chapter 8 of the UA, Nero states that he hired Miss K to become a teacher. At that time Mr. Remora had retired. Mrs. Bass was still at her job, but she had to take time off in order to settle matters with the bank (probably rob the bank). Miss K took Prufrock several books of interest to VFD, including one of the ASOUE books. The enigma is: Who is Miss K? The first time I read it, I evidently thought it was Kit Snicket. But, Miss K is not Kit Snicket, as TBB could only be published after Kit Snicket's death. In LSTUA, there is a picture of a woman with children at Prufrock Prep. Whether this woman is Miss K or not is debatable. But the fact is that there is an observation from Lemony about her ("will I see her again?"), indicating that the person in the picture is an associate of Lemony who is alive but with whom he has not had contact for a long time. She is someone with whom he wishes to keep contact. We know it's not Kit or Beatrice, as both were already dead at this time.

The answer is: That is R. Sometimes, the most obvious answers are right in front of us, and we simply don't see them.  We have access to Lemony's life story, albeit fragmented in TBL and in LSTUA. Canonically, in Lemony's life, there were only three women who were his friends and remained in his life throughout his life: Kit, Beatrice, and R. If Kit and Beatrice were already dead, the only person who could bring feelings of nostalgia to Lemony is R, the Duchess of Winnipeg. Why had R been away from Lemony for such a long time? According to TBL, R had become a duchess after her mother's death, and evidently, the service of a duchess was laborious and carried out far from the City where Lemony usually operated. Even when Lemony went to R's house, there's nothing to suggest that he and she had time to interact. He was desperately trying to find a supposed Beatrice, and was captured shortly thereafter.

What I'm saying is that when we put R into the equation, along with the Great Hiatus, everything beautifully fits together. During the writing of TCC, TSS, and TGG, R was pretending to be Kit, and Lemony knew it. Lemony referred to her as "my sister" in secret letters, he arranged a meeting with her at Hotel D (which had been restored), and even said in TGG that this sister Kit (he mentioned her by name) could be saved through a small, herbed piece of toast. Obviously, this Kit Snicket couldn't be the real Kit Snicket, because Kit was dead. To move from "this couldn't be Kit" to "this is R" may seem like a big leap. In addition to being a friend of Lemony, in R's letter to Lemony recorded in LSTUA chapter 2, R makes an important observation: "There are many of us left, Mr Snicket, but we're ready to help you in any way we can." This means that R offered to help Lemony. This sentence is significant. Moreover, R indicates that she has great disguise skills, as she states in the letter that she has disguised herself as Lemony Snicket impersonating someone else. Then she sends photos to Lemony. She makes a single request to Lemony: Study these photos. Among the photos is the photograph of herself with Kit Snicket, both wearing the same clothes and striking an identical pose. Although they are of different heights (when they were children), the resemblance between the two is obvious. At the time when R's letter was being written, Kit had already died. But R does not put the information that Kit was dead in writing in the letter. Everything in this letter takes into consideration the possibility that Lemony's enemies could read the letter. Either way, R trusted that Lemony, by studying the photographs along with the subsequent events, would deduce that R was going to assume the identity of Kit Snicket, and he should go along with the ruse and take advantage of it. 

The idea of R seems to have worked very well. We find a reply letter from Lemony to a supposed "sister" in LSTUA page 192: "My dear sister, I understand how desperate our situation has become, but it's already unpleasant enough for people to read about the Baudelaires, I can't imagine who would dare to help them." The question had been: "Is there something a concerned citizen can do if he or she wants to help the Baudelaires?" Evidently, at the time this letter with this question was sent to Lemony (and which had been sent to him under the false name of Kit), Lemony had already published at least one ASOUE book, since in the reply he talks about people reading about the Baudelaires. In other words, Kit was already dead. Another important detail is that, according to TE, when Kit died she thought Lemony was dead, and she had no way to contact him. So, the person who was passing as Kit, was most likely R. When Lemony wrote secret messages in the books for his sister, he was sending messages to R.

It's interesting how everything really fits together, taking into account this timeline. At the Masked Ball, Lemony went there believing that Beatrice was alive and hiding in R's house. The excuse for Beatrice hiding instead of searching for her children was that, if her survival became public, Olaf would have no reason to preserve the life of at least one of her children if they were captured. Thus, Lemony tried to communicate for 14 years with the supposed Beatrice (the Great Hiatus lasted more than 14 years) to pass on the information: "Count Olaf is dead." It was because he believed that Beatrice was alive that Lemony stopped writing about the children for so long. Additionally, during these 14 years Lemony was engaged in another mission: producing TBL and finding the My Silence Knot poem. And here, we enter an Extra Enigma: The TBL part 3 enigma, which is a secret Enigma of TBL.

TBL Enigma Part 3 - To be clear, this is part 3, because there are other enigmas in TBL that draw more attention than this one, and which appeared much earlier. But this enigma is as follows: In Beatrice Junior's last letter to Lemony, she claims to be 10 years old. How could the Great Hiatus last more than 14 years, if Beatrice Junior was only ten years old when she tried to meet with Lemony?

Answer: Beatrice Junior tried to meet with Lemony after the publication of TBB and TRR but before the publication of TWW, in other words, before the Great Hiatus began. Most interestingly, this is canon. According to BB To LS #5, Beatrice Jr read some of the ASOUE books and was able to compare what she had heard from the Baudelaires themselves with what Lemony had written. However, according to BB to LS #2, Beatrice Jr was not able to identify what a paperweight in the shape of one of the lake's leeches was. More than that, according to TWW, Lemony was still living in a building while he was writing TWW. He hadn't yet started to be a fugitive from the authorities (despite apparently having problems with them). That's why Beatrice Jr was able to rent an apartment above the apartment where Lemony lived in the Rhetorical Building. This was because Lemony was still living there. Lemony wrote to the editor (TBL) that he spent years trying to find the letters and items that form TBL. This also happened during the Great Hiatus.