#( ❝ in a world ❞ // vfd )

[logan-the-artist]

the world is quiet here

[multicolored-malpractice]

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

[vfdinthewild]

"VADA FOR DAHI VADA"

-found on a frozen packaged dinner

[the-nonsense-is-mine]

nothing will ever make me angrier than Netflix taking Jacques and Jerome, with their incredibly compelling and thematically important relationship that is never explored in the ASOUE books because it's already over and it's the recollection of it that deeply affects and reveals their characters, putting them in the same room in the same conversation in TEE part 2 and not even acknowledging that they know each other

[sampungmgadaliri]

Shoutout to the nerdiest fandom to ever exist!

Move over, Trekkies! You’re not the nerdiest community in town. This is an appreciation post for the A Series of Unfortunate Events fandom aka the community where all autistic people meet. That’s a compliment. I was lucky to be in this fandom for 2 decades now, starting from 2004 when I first read The Bad Beginning from our school library. It wasn’t until 2014 when I joined 667 Dark Avenue, the…

[unfortunatetheorist]

The Complete Works of Contradictory Logic in ASOUE: Volume I (Quote Debunk 10)

Part 7 - The Miserable Mill S1 E7

Quick Intro: Surprise! I'm back after what I know has been quite a long while - life's been keeping me busy! As Voltaire once said: "Life is thickly sown with thorns and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them."

Time to carry on where we left off...

And of course we're jumping straight in with Mr Poe-ntless:

01:49 - "We must act now! We must act without delay! We... (sniffs)... need... (sniffs again)... We need... (sniffs some chowder because why not?) Oh! Oh, my! Oh, my, this is excellent chowder. Mmm, mmm, good. Oh, God... [chugs the entire thing - again, why not?]"

How did we ever believe this guy cared about the Baudelaires?

05:06 - "Pink Floyd's "The Wall"... Although Mother wouldn't let me watch that one."

Not contradictory per se, but a beautifully subtle reference to the lyrics of the song 'Another Brick in The Wall, Pt 2.' particularly the chorus:

We don't need no education

We don't need no thought control

No dark sarcasm in the classroom

Teacher, leave them kids alone!

So I guess it's contradictory, in a way, to the underlying principles of V.F.D.

07:06 - "They have to do what I say, even my partner here." ~ Sir

Luckily Klaus responds quickly and correctly to this one.

10:06 - "...who joined you for years on a sequence of heists and schemes until the two of you were forced apart by circumstance, and also because you ran off in the middle of the night with a bunch of her valuables?" ~ Olaf. to Evander the Truck Driver

What a way to lose a lady. Something tells me only Olaf would do something like this!

The chocolate bar scene at 10:26 is funny, but not really the kind of contradiction we're looking for.

14:45 - "I'm just an old friend" *sniffs flowers and writhes in disgust* ~Olaf to Georgina

"Um, Dr Orwell's not here right now." ~ Dr Orwell (Georgina) to Olaf.

Sheer genius. Neatly covered with the hilarity of Olaf's facial expression after smelling the flowers.

15:06 - "So he isn't just knocking on Dr Orwell's door because he needs something - for himself?" ~ Georgina

Olaf: *chuckles*, *pulls angry face*, *chuckles*

It's brilliantly timed and brilliantly filmed. Also better/easier to understand when viewed.

15:27 - "...who shares one's brilliance, one's charm, one's dubious moral code in a world gone gloriously wrong." ~ Olaf

Olaf was just trying to find alphabetical words; 'brilliance' and 'charm' have quite different meaning and connotation to 'dubious'.

Also, a world gone 'gloriously wrong', eh, Olaf? I wonder how it got that way...

15:48 - This gem:

Georgina: "I took a solemn oath that my office would be closed to you forever even during regular business hours."

Also Georgina: "How big a fortune are we talking?"

22:22 - "I took a chance on treating you like grown-ups, don't make me regret it." ~ Sir to the Baudelaires

A classic phrase often said to children to enforce good behaviour now twisted to benefit Sir's bank balance. Respect, Handler! This kind of thing goes unnoticed very easily.

25:25 - "You, me, an evil scheme, a little death." ~ Olaf

"La petit mort" ~ Georgina

"You know I love it when you speak Spanish." ~ Olaf

Ok. First off, 'la petit mort' is, in fact, French not Spanish. Secondly, 'la petit mort' literally means 'the little death' but in French slang, it means something else entirely... [Hint: not child-friendly...]

26:10 - "It represents the eyes of God staring down and judging society as a moral wasteland." ~ Klaus

"Oh, that sounds like a fun book." ~ Phil

Not really sure how fun this is... but the same could be said about ASOUE to be fair. Each to his own, I suppose.

37:24 - "We've fought a host of unsavoury characters, including a most unfriendly refrigerator repair person. We've flown a plane into a hurricane. We've been to Peru and back to get home to our children. And today, finally, we'll all be together. What could be wrong?"

Gotta love the sarcasm when it's there.

There's also the piece related to the final scene about Sir mentioning the 'probable' (yeah right) conditions of the Baudelaires, which are actually his own... this isn't as contradictory as it perhaps could've been so not worth writing in full.

~ Th3r3534rch1ngr4ph, Unfortunate Theorist/Snicketologist

[witherydithery]

Lemony perceives Ellington as someone whose true nature and plans are elusive when, in reality, he is the mysterious one and Ellington is very open about her motivations.

[dragoneyes618]

So was Qwerty about to say "The world is quiet here," revealing himself as a member of VFD, if Lemony hadn't interrupted him?

[themagicalmolly]

When we grab you by the ankle, 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 tell you: The world is quiet here.

Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate Events

[hvbris]

𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐇 & 𝐕𝐅𝐃 𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄 . 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓 𝐎𝐋𝐀𝐅

This verse follows Olaf's youth, from his teenage to his young adult life. He was recruited into VFD like any other volunteer, dragged out of his childhood bed in the middle of the night, and taken to the organization's headquarters, where he was taught all the things one would expect to learn at a secret organization. Secret codes, lockpicking, disguise... But some other things too, like theatre.

Olaf was a handsome and arrogant young man, with a tendency to ignore the rules to better break them. He was trouble. And when his parents die when he's still a young man, killed by a volunteer he considered a friend, he slowly but surely realizes that he'd much rather start fires, instead of stopping them.

In this verse, he's easily met while working on investigations and missions for VFD. Things like disappearances, fires, murders, robberies... You may even hire his services as an investigator. Just make sure he's still a "good guy" when you do it.

[just-your-average-tangerine]

Now is the perfect time for me to get a new tattoo and I suddenly don't know what to get

[protectionsquad24601]

People who say "I don't like asoue bc it's formulaic" miss the point bc

-it starts as a formula, a cycle of the Baudelaires being abused and mistreated bc IT'S A CYCLE THAT THEY'RE STUCK IN!! A cycle of evil and ignorence. They're being tossed around by the world and they need to get out of the cycle themselves.

-the cycle: they go to a new guardian, led by Mr. Poe, who ignores the problems about the situation. Count Olaf is stalking them, trying to kill the Baudelaires and steal their fortune.

-as is the rules with poetry and writing, you have to repeat something a few times to mess around with the formula, which you see is changed as early as the Miserable Mill. There's a poetic quality to the repetition, as well as when and how it changes.

-as it goes on, you see their passiveness being increasingly replaced with action that culminates at the end of the Vile Village, where they run away. In doing so, they've cut off the "new guardian" element to the cycle.

-they're trying to save the Quagmires and figure things out on their own. But two crucial elements to their cycle haven't been broken: they still are trying to contact Mr. Poe and they are still being hunted by Count Olaf.

-in the Grim Grotto, they break Mr. Poe out of the cycle.

-in the first chapter of the Bad Beginning, Mr. Poe meets the children on Briny Beach to inform them of the death of their parents. They come with him.

-at the end of Grim Grotto, they meet him again at Briny Beach and refuse to come, choosing instead to listen to a mysterious stranger and coded message. They choose autonomy. They choose to try to learn and figure things out. Active, not passive.

-in the Penultimate Peril is an effort to cut ties with Count Olaf once and for all as well as obtaining roles from both sides of VFD.

-but they can't get rid of Olaf and they can't let him go. Bc the last part of the cycle needs to be permanently put to rest.

-YES; Olaf hunts them throughout every book. That's. The. Point.

-Olaf needed to DIE before they could leave the island in The End.

-Olaf needed to die before they could move on.

-Olaf's death cut the final current in their cycle, ending the formula and therefore ending the series. Cutting out all the "repetitive" elements of the series made it finally end.

-they broke the cycle. That's why they could be free.

UGH I have so many thoughts

One day I'll write up this theory more cohesiveness.

[unfortunatetheorist]

Hello! Love your blog :) Hoping you can help me with a quick q. On page 269 of The Slippery Slope, Violet, Klaus and Quigley discover the VFD motto ‘the world is quiet here’ but the narrator (Lemony) describes ‘four tiny words etched over their heads’, not five. Do you think this is a mistake, or is he leaving one out (e.g: ‘the’), or is he deliberately misquoting? The motto is derived from the first line of the Algernon Charles Swinburne poem The Garden of Proserpine: ‘Here, where the world is quiet;’ — so should the real interpretation of the motto be ‘the world is quiet’? Interested to hear your thoughts, thanks!

Hi, @sianitha, thanks for the ask (my Very First Discussion)!

It's definitely an interesting question, for which there can be a few theories:

Lemony is lying, for some bizarre reason.

Lemony is referring to The Garden of Proserpine when he means the actual emblazoned motto.

Either the word 'Here' or the word 'The' got burned from the fire, and Lemony is right.

It's an unnoticed editorial mistake.

Let's see. We know none of it is burned, as Quigley read all five words out.

Lemony is lying, for some bizarre reason.

Lemony is referring to The Garden of Proserpine when he means the actual emblazoned motto.

Either the word 'Here' or the word 'The' got burned from the fire, and Lemony is right.

It's an unnoticed editorial mistake.

Lemony is known for being a bit of a liar, but I think he tells mostly half-truths - when necessary - simply because he can't trust anyone, after having gone on the lam. But in this context, it's unnecessary; he's writing these books to clear his name and the Baudelaires' names, what good would it do him to lie?

Lemony is lying, for some bizarre reason.

Lemony is referring to The Garden of Proserpine when he means the actual emblazoned motto.

Either the word 'Here' or the word 'The' got burned from the fire, and Lemony is right.

It's an unnoticed editorial mistake.

Also, as a volunteer, he'd know his poetry pretty well; well enough to distinguish it from the organisation's motto, even if it is similar.

Lemony is lying, for some bizarre reason.

Lemony is referring to The Garden of Proserpine when he means the actual emblazoned motto.

Either the word 'Here' or the word 'The' got burned from the fire, and Lemony is right.

It's an unnoticed editorial mistake.

And this makes sense when you look at other typos, such as...

...well, as far as I remember, there was one in TPP about Klaus and "her sisters", or something to that effect.

As for the interpretation of the motto, I think it means

"THE WORLD IS QUIET HERE"

i.e. Wherever there is a branch of the V.F.D., the world THERE is quiet. Elsewhere, it's noisy and uncouth.

Hope that helps,

¬ Th3r3534rch1ngr4ph, Unfortunate Theorist/Snicketologist

***EDIT: There's also a fifth option which I hadn't thought of when writing this - the motto reads "THE WORLD'S QUIET HERE". But this also doesn't follow, as Quigley read out 5 words, not 4.***

[treefey]

Knowing the Jewish overtones of the story, this is kind of making me feel things rn.

Unrelated to anything, but I think what was in the Sugar Bowl ultimately doesn’t matter. Maybe it mattered once, but now it’s just a symbol for people to continue fighting each other. What was in the Sugar Bowl isn’t important, what’s important is the never ending war that happened over it. By not telling the readers what is in the Sugar Bowl, the entire point of the story becomes clear, it never mattered, because nothing is as important as the lives lost in the fight over it. The point is to show how people fight, and refuse to stop, believing they are right above all else, both sides of the Schism are guilty of this.

[rorykillmore]

a series of unfortunate events was one of those things you had to be there for. not to say that they don't still hold up if you go back and read them now but there was such a specific era of the author, daniel handler, weaving this kind of meta narrative (as his pen name, lemony snicket). and making a little arg out of it where he'd leave narrative hints on obscure vfd websites. and you, as a grade schooler with limited internet access because it was the early 2000's, not being 100% sure how much of it was real because at the time the books were coming out, so little information on the author was actually out there. and there were audiobooks with original songs written for each book, but they weren't like, catchy kid friendly tunes - they were like haunting gothic rock songs with titles like "smile, no one cares how you feel" and "the world is a very scary place" and "things are not what they appear." by a band that was also completely obscure at the time but which turned out to be one the author was a part of. that will always be the vibe i associate with those books.

[jabber-wock]

Okay but actually I dont think that tea should be bitter as wormwood OR sharp as two edged sword.

Like either as flavour thing or thematically. Like obviously if your tea is sharp and bitter it's over steeped and kind of nasty. Tea should be spicy or sweet or rich or earthy or milky, but not bitter.

But also thematically I think that this also shows that VFD is just a fundamentally flawed organisation. Like wormwood is used in alcohol and sometimes can be poisonous, and a two edged sword is only used for one thing violence (a single edged blade can be used for cooking, chopping wood, or opening letters, but a two edged sword can only be used in one way) along with the obvious symbolism of a double edged sword cutting both ways.

VFD, fundamental, is a secret organization. They're not sharing information with the world, they're not helping people in the ways that they want to be helped.

To me, tea goes together with books in a perfect, cozy, wonderful way, but to the members of VFD, books and information are primarily for weapons and secrecy, and tea should be as bitter as wormwood and as sharp as a two edged sword.