The very first discovery readers make about the mythology of “A Series Of Unfortunate Events” is, naturally, the purpose of its semi-fictional narrator:
Who is he?
What does he want?
When did he start recording the lives of the Baudelaire orphans?
Why do they matter to him?
We do get an answer to all of these mysteries, in “The End”.
But these are all the wrong questions.
The real question is: “Can we, as a reader, trust the benevolent image he tries to project?”
There is indeed a difference between giving the facts and telling the truth. And when it comes down to it, there is something unseemly about the idea of a grown man exposing these children’s darkest turmoils for the benefit of complete strangers. Without apparent consent, no less.
Let’s embark together on a troubling journey and retrace Lemony’s investigation, step by step. We will analyze his methods; we will question his motives. And we will paint a very different picture of Mr Snicket’s works than the one he wants us to believe… after the cut.
“In 2012, Louis C.K. appeared on “The Daily Show” and said that “comedians and feminists are natural enemies” because “feminists can’t take a joke.” Jon Stewart nodded vigorously and agreed. Today, Stewart is being fawned over for acknowledging, in response to Louis C.K.’s fall, that “comedy on its best day is not a great environment for women.” A friend, the comedian Zahra Noorbakhsh, texted me: Ten years from now a man will win awards for his documentary about all this.
If you believe us now only because your peers are facing professional ruin, that deserves its own reckoning. I’ll wait.”
He has said in interviews that the ending was his creation, and that it wasn’t decided on from the start of the series. The ending is entirely his. It is not Handler’s. While Handler was involved intimately in Season 1, he was pushed out in Season 2. Season 3 seems to be Barry’s take entirely.
The inconsistencies across seasons is likely a result of this change in production from collaboration in close association with the creator to just fully going with Barry’s interpretation. He thought that fans would be mad if they didn’t answer questions, so he gave them answers.
A misguided decision on his part, but it has been confirmed that The End is Barry’s work, and was not what he and Handler originally set down to write.
Kit Snicket was four years old when the schism happened.
This isn’t even some bullshit we all decided on. We know this is canon. She says it in The Pentultimate Peril.
Kit Snicket was four years old when the schism happened.
VFD is older than we know, and the schism is, at the very least, the result of the generation back. VFD wasn’t some book club gone wrong with five members and headed by Ishmael. It was vast, old, and goddamn messy before the characters we know even got involved, really.
The schism wasn’t caused by the night at the opera. It couldn’t have been. This isn’t even to mention the timeline issues of the medusoid mycelium and the sugar-horseradish crossbreed, which other people have brought up.
Netflix’s timeline is… wrong. It’s literally incompatible with book canon.
It’s incompatible with its own canon.
What is there for Olaf to have known that Beatrice would need to be warned about? The Night at the Opera does not make any sense given the line:
The Quagmire kidnapping is the result of a murder which is the result of an arson, a moving violation, a misdemeanor, two poison darts, three civil suits and a stolen object
Clearly, the show decided to change what they had originally planned, going back to what Handler had originally thought he was going to do back very early in the series and have Olaf be the one who started the schism. But the show went out of its way to try to make him a buffoon, so they really shot themselves in the foot as far as this was concerned.
Not to mention, Ishmael is not old enough to have started VFD. They could have made him look old enough to be contemporaries with the gruesome twosome, but instead he just looks like he went prematurely white. His skin is in way too good condition to have been on an island for 15+ years and to have been an educator when Olaf and Lemony were school age kids.
It makes no sense.
I always thought Ishmael was lying, at least in the book he is a liar and manipulative he even deceives the children a second time even when they know he is a liar.
Although I think it has more to do with the fact that Netflix oversimplified the story of VFD
It’s possible, but Olaf’s dialogue supports what Ishmael said, and they did plant the seeds for the twist in TAA (the VFD recruiting with the chest club poster), so I think that it’s more Netflix just not getting ASOUE rather than Netflix understanding Ish the character.
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