#Sir ASOUE

[afterthegreatunknown]

List of Snicket-Verse Characters I headcanon as Asian Descent, Fully or Partly, with the One (1) Book Canonical Asian Character

The One (1) Book Canonical

Haruki [Murakami]: Japanese. Originally born in Kyoto in the Fushimi-ku ward, Haruki and his family moved to the City when he was six due to his father’s job (in the organization). When it comes to reading and writing Japanese, it isn’t as perfect as people assume, for Haruki spend more of his childhood reading and writing in English. Speaking Japanese though, Haruki can 100% do.

Headcanons Characters, ATWQ

Dashiell Qwerty: Chinese descent. Qwerty is an alias surname his family uses when out in the field for VFD. His real surname is Qiao, and whenever not in the field, volunteers call him Qiao. Or ‘Q’, if they can’t pronounce it. Dashiell has a technical middle name; his Chinese given name, Qiang. Dashiell is (was) only call Qiang by his parents.

Jackie’s Grandfather: Korean. Jackie’s grandfather full name in western order, is Pyong-ho Ahn, nickname in his youth as Moray. Phyong-ho used to manage Moray Wheels in the past in addition to racing, before retiring and allowing Jackie to take over. Phyong-ho by the present no longer goes by Moray, unless you’re a very close friend of his.

Jackie (Ahn): Korean descent. Jackie is really Jackie’s first name, though they do accept the Korean name their grandfather gave them: Jae-kyung. Jackie only answers to Jae-kyung if it’s spoken by their grandfather, their parents (now decease), and their aunt and uncle and cousin who lives in the City, finding it something special meant for family only.

The Talkie Brothers: Asian descent of different nationalities. Arthur Takei is of Japanese descent. Amit Sharma is of Indian descent. ‘Talkie Brothers’ came because many couldn’t pronounce Takei. They thought about going by “the Sherman Brothers” for some couldn’t pronounce Sharma correctly either, but that is used by a real pair of musically talent brothers.

Alice Lost, nee Takei: Japanese descent. The younger sister of Arthur Takei, Alice has a great talent of doing origami. She can make anything out of a piece of paper, but her specialty was making paper cranes. In fact, before her death, Alice was aiming to create 1,000, and had reached 1,000 exactly when the fire broke out at the Lost Arms.

Ornette Lost: Biracial. Japanese descent from her mother Alice, Irish descent from her father (Prosper immigrated to SBTS as a child with his parents). Ornette’s talent of (paper) sculptures came from watching her mother folding origami paper into cranes. Ornette feels connected to her mother when making origami cranes, and aims to fold 1,001 in her memory.

Headcanon Characters, ASOUE

Captain Widdershins: (French) Chinese Cambodian on Father’s side, and native Cambodian (Khmer) on Mother’s side. Widdershins does his best to feel connected to his former home country, be celebrating holidays that he can barely recall celebrating, making meals if the ingredients available, or speaking Khmer to himself and sometimes around Fiona. For that last one, Widdershins gave Fiona a Khmer [nick]name, though after an interaction with a volunteer, had Widdershins stopping it. Post-canon, he starts saying Fiona’s Khmer [nick]name again, usually when it's just the two of them.

Raymond ‘Q’ Quagmire: Chinese descent. Raymond is an adopted Quagmire due to his brother Dashiell’s death/murder. Raymond, like Dashiell, has a technical middle name that is his Chinese given name; Jiahao. However, for reasons, people assume Dashiell’s Chinese given name is Raymond’s, made worse because many had forgot Raymond and Dashiell are related.

Joan Quagmire [nee Morstan]: Chinese descent. Joan’s birth surname is Lau; Morstan is the surname of her adopted family. Two of Joan’s favorite games to play are Mahjong and Wei Qi (Go). While she’s not the best player of the latter, she’s brilliant in the former. Joan likes making her children (all together) play a game with her once a week; they never won.

Alex and Lindsey Morstan: Chinese descent. Being Joan’s triplet sisters, they were forced to play Mahjong and Wei Qi with her, with the latter being the game they’re best at. Alex and Lindsey are fonder of reading (translated) Chinese novels; Alex loves Journey to the West, while Lindsey enjoys Flowers in the Mirror.

Duncan, Isadora, and Quigley Quagmire: Chinese descent. Duncan, Isadora, and Quigley, pre and post canon, do their best to gain insight and feel connected to their identity, in their own ways. Duncan does it by researching Chinese history, particularly of the Chinese Dynasties (the Tang Dynasty is his favorite). Isadora does it by watching Chinese opera (she loves the costumes, and the singing style). Quigley does with the hands-on approach of preparing and cooking traditional Chinese dishes with help (parents and aunt pre-canon. Post-canon, Quigley get Hector or Widdershins’ help, sometimes the two adults together if needed).

Charles: Vietnamese descent. Charles’ full name is Charles Nguyen, the son of two Vietnamese people who lived half their lives in France before moving to the Land of Districts. Charles worked with his parents at their swanky restaurant, Nguyen Bistro; it serves traditional Vietnamese dishes as well as French dishes as an alternative. Charles took business (and cooking) classes to fully take over, but a mysterious fire that burned the restaurant and the apartment home, as well as killing his parents, changed his path.

Sir: Thai. An immigrant that came to the Land of Districts to escape his past, Sir found work at Lucky Smells Lumber Mill as a regular employee, before getting promoted to foreman. When the owner Smogface Wiley died, the mill was doom to close. However, Sir managed to get a trial run as boss, and later became the new permanent owner. Sir’s cousins working at the Mill is true; they’re the ones who made Sir escape his past in the first place. Sir had no qualms on the conditions they’re working, seeing how he survived it and worked his way upward (and maybe revenge).

(Regarding Sir’s unknown name, his first name at least, it’s Chalermchai. When he was a regular employee, Chalermchai was usually referred to or call by that didn’t require the foreman or anyone else to say his name. But when Chalermchai became foreman, people discover they were unable to say it, so Chalermchai became ‘Sir.’ Not many people call Sir by his first name nowadays. Charles says it, and even then, it’s rare.)

R, Duchess of Winnipeg: Biracial. Japanese descent from her father, Ryutaro (Second generation Japanese-Canadian), and French from her mother, Sabine (French from France and French Canadian). R is a naming pattern from her father’s family, for in Sabine’s family, no one ever had an ‘R’ name before (Sabine does have the alias of ‘Rhea’ though). R isn’t connected to her Japanese heritage as much as she likes; the most she knows of is Japanese theater, mainly Kabuki. The R engrave ring was something Sabine did herself, much to her mother (R’s Grand-Mère Thea) disapproval, for Sabine wanted the ring to be special for R when she gets it.

R’s heir, Ramona Q, and the Q stands for Quach (Quách): She's the daughter of two Vietnamese refugees who were very good friends with R. They confided to R about the odd interactions Ramona had with her local librarian, leading to R telling them things to do to keep their daughter safe. When Ramona’s parents died in a fire, R decided to adopt Ramona to lessen VFD’s influence. R loves Ramona very much, being an honorary aunt to the girl before adopting her, and does her best to let Ramona be connected to her culture (clothing, music, food; food is most common and accessible one of all).

[drowninginredink]

Having thoughts. Having fic thoughts. Thinking about how I could torture this poor man even more than Sir does

Rhys Darby as Charles in A Series of Unfortunate Events S1:E7+E8 ⪼ being an afterthought, getting rejected, and being so brave about it

[snicketverse-fic-finder]

ASOUE characters: How popular are they on Ao3?✨📚😎😮🫢

No.of fics with each character in them

Baudelaires:

Beatrice: 417

Bertrand: 257

🔧Violet: 977 🏆

📚Klaus: 822

🍳 Sunny: 662

👶 Beatrice II: 192

Quagmires:

Mrs Quagmire: 34

Mr Quagmire: 28

🖋️Isadora: 369 🏆

🗞️ Duncan: 367

🗺️ Quigley: 332 (Surprising tbh, I thought he’d win out of the triplets at least)

Widdershins:

⚓️Captain Widdershins: 40

🍄 Fiona: 114

🪝 Fernald: 166 🏆

Olaf+his troupe:

🎭 Count Olaf: 722 🏆

🍸 Esmé Squalor: 379

Woman with hair but no beard: 30

Man with beard but no hair: 25

👓 Georgina Orwell: 143

Henchperson of indeterminate gender: 84

Bald man: 57

White-faced women: 56 (just mildly less popular than the bald man yet there’s TWO of them- that’s gotta blow 😔-)

🎪[The Freaks] 🎪

Kevin: 14 🏅

Hugo: 13

Collette: 12

Denouements:

Frank: 76

Ernest: 92

🦄: 102 🏆

Snickets: (Take this with a grain of salt bc they have a whole other series -ATWQ- going for them)

Jaques: 347

Kit: 410

Lemony: 536 🏆

Guardians+the likes:

🏦 Mr Poe: 104

🗞️ Eleanora Poe: 14

📰 Polly Poe: 1

🐑 Edgar Poe: 10

💰 Albert Poe: 6 (Why is Edgar more popular??)

🐍Uncle Monty: 114

🐍 Ink/The Incredibly Deadly Viper: 8

🪟 Aunt Josephine: 72

Ike Anwhistle: 26

[🚬 Sir: 30

Charles: 54

👓 Georgina Orwell: 143 🏅

😃 Phil: 10 ]

[🎻Vice Principal Nero: 37 (That’s less than the bald man who has maybe 3 lines total, take that!)

Mrs Bass: 4 (Damn.)

Ms. Tench: 2 (Double damn)

Mr Remora: 3

📚 Olivia Caliban: 237 🏅]

🍸 Jerome Squalor: 104

(���Esmé Squalor: 379 but I put her in the Olaf’s troupe section. This is just for quick comparison to Jerome. Poor guy. Ish. I don’t actually feel that bad for him tbh.)

🦅 The Council of Elders: 4

🎈 Hector: 48

Hal: 8

Babs: 9

Phil: 10

[🍎 Ishmael: 17

🐟 Miranda Caliban: 8

🕶️ Friday Caliban: 26 🏅

🚢 Thursday: 5 ]

Miscellaneous VFD members:

😎 Jacquelyn Scieszka: 172 🏆

🎥 Gustav Sebald: 78

🐟 Larry Your-Waiter: 85

👑 Duchess R of Winnipeg: 61 or 64 (3 are under ‘Duchess R’

Uncategorised:

Ben: 4

🚲 The Paperboy: 3

💃 Carmelita Spats: 149

Top 3:

1~ Violet Baudelaire! 🔧💜 (977 fics on Ao3 are tagged ‘Violet Baudelaire’! 🎉)

2~Klaus Baudelaire!!📚💙(822 fics!)

3~ Count Olaf! 👁️ 😈 (722 fics!)

Loser:

Polly Poe (with a disappointing 1 fic!😱)

[witherydithery]

No wonder Lemony hates Carmelita so much. He once knew another bully who was perceived as someone who could do no wrong by people in power and that kid literally got away with murder. 

[silkhy-john]

Sunny: KROG!

Lemony Snicket: which probably means “The mouthfeel of this gateau is incredible and the flavours are beautifully complex!”

The readers: :O

[sincerecinnamon]

In the A Series of Unfortunate Events episode, The Miserable Mill: Part Two, Sir says, "Don't ask, don't tell. That's my motto."

When I originally watched that episode, oblivious to queer history, I didn't realize that was a joke, but it's very funny to me now

[cultofmalcolm]

Stupid fucking band bastille 2 characters

[lemonlinelights]

*me skimming a tv show because I forgot about it but like there were only three episodes left so I skimmed them*

The show: skimming a book is not the same as reading it for the same reason that fast forwarding through a piece of televised entertainment is not the same as watching it. When you skim the narrative you get a strange view of the story.

Me: o h unmm

[autumn-in-fandom]

Rewatching a Series of Unfortunate Events with the kiddo. I have the flu right now and had my eyes clothes, but at the beginning of episode 7 my ears perked up at Charles’ voice. I’d recognize that timid queer coded Kiwi cadence anywhere, opened my eyes and was delighted to see Stede Bon- errr… Rhys Darby.

[unfortunatetheorist]

I can definitely imagine this, @asoue-headcanons! Plus, given Sunny's culinary expertise, this would take Another One Bites The Dust to a whole new level!

~ Th3r3534rch1ngr4ph

#446. In her teenage years, Sunny learned how to play bass for a Queen cover band.

[unfortunatetheorist]

What happened to the statue of The Bombinating Beast? - Part 1: ATWQ to ASOUE

This theory is dedicated to @ven10, whose post depicting the statue in the episode of The End (https://www.tumblr.com/unfortunatetheorist/758594891663212544/it-certainly-is-ven10-it-certainly-is?source=share), inspired my thoughts. There are also inferences made by @snicketsleuth (and @snicketstrange) which are used.

So, by the end of WITNDFAON (which I admit I haven't read yet but will get round to), we know that The Bombinating Beast statue is of great importance, as well as:

"Snicket fed Armstrong to the creature, and then wandered into the Clusterous Forest with the statue. It is unknown what he did with the statue and what happened to that beast, or its siblings, after this" ~ Snicket Wiki.

The only hint we have of The Bombinating Beast is that Lemony wanders into the Clusterous Forest with it's statue. Therefore it is important to take into consideration an extra detail about the Clusterous Forest, which links the ATWQ universe to ASOUE:

Lucky Smells Lumbermill gets its green timber from The Clusterous Forest.

This is my line of reasoning as to what happened:

1. Despite being an agent of VFD, Lemony is still a child, so there is a chance he feels some remorse for killing Armstrong Feint/Hangfire.

2. It is out of said remorse that Lemony decides to have nothing to do with the Beast again, burying the statue of the Beast deep in the forest... or so he thinks.

3. During ASOUE (just before TMM) a worker (e.g. Evander) chopping trees for Lucky Smells Lumbermill comes across the statue.

4. Not knowing what to do with it, and being under hypnotic influence, the worker promptly hands it to the foreman, who gives it to Sir.

5. It is extremely likely that Sir (The Miserable Mill) and Wiley Smogface (FU:13SI, ATWQ) are in fact the same person; however, there is no reference of any connection whatsoever between Sir/Smogface and The Bombinating Beast's statue. This implies that he knows nothing about the Beast, which makes little sense given that he is from Stain'd-by-the-Sea.

This logical gap can be filled: if Sir/Smogface had a "very terrible childhood" as Charles has clearly stated during TMM, this could refer to his parents bouncing around from town to town as they seek different jobs with more and more money. Hence, Wiley is left by himself in his parents' latest job-stop - Stain'd-by-the-Sea - unaware of the legend of The Bombinating Beast.

6. Sir has no idea of the power he holds... but apparently, neither does Georgina! There's also no reference to Georgina knowing anything about the statue - she's just a VFD optometrist with a bad reputation who lives in Paltryville, even during the events of ATWQ.

This implies that the statue... well... just stood there, as an ornament, in Sir's office.

7. Someone took the statue from Sir's office at Lucky Smells Lumbermill. But who? Well, whoever it was must have known two things:

a) The importance of the statue

b) It's location

There are only 3 people who seem to fit the bill perfectly - Lemony, Ellington and Moxie.

We know that each of them have their reasons:

Lemony: To use its power to somehow help the Baudelaires.

Ellington: To end it all after falling into a depression from the loss of her father OR to claim revenge on Lemony after having gone through the grief mentioned above.

Moxie: For a great story and the Mallahan legacy; after all, Lady Mallahan allegedly slew the Original Bombinating Beast.

@snicketsleuth's post, 'What is The Great Unknown?' (Full post here: The Snicket Sleuth — What is “The Great Unknown”? (tumblr.com)), says the following:

"Following the events of “All The Wrong Questions”, Ellington eventually escaped from the prison cell with Kit Snicket thanks to the skeleton key in Ellington’s bag. Kit and Ellington, before going their own ways, exchanged a good deal of information. Kit Snicket could not help noticing Ellington acted extremely angry towards Lemony and VFD in general.

In the following years, Ellington worked tirelessly to recover her father’s remaining assets as well as uncovering the secrets of Inhumane Society. Though the book Caviar: Salty Jewel of the Tasty Sea was destroyed, she had had the opportunity to read some chapters Lemony hadn’t. No one knew about the CBB more than her. With some effort, she managed to find the animal hiding in the Clusterous Forest, as well as the Bombinating Beast statue that Lemony had buried there. With the statue, she was now in control of the CBB. Eventually she managed to track down an octopus-shaped submarine which used to belong to Hangfire, only to lose it to Count Olaf.

As Olaf escaped with the submarine (now rebaptized the Carmelita), Ellington pursued him. She used the statue to control the CBB, ordering it to seize the Carmelita. The CBB first encountered the Queequeg in close vicinity to the Queequeg. Unsure whether these two crafts were allied with each other, Ellington ordered the CBB to stand down. Captain Widdershins mistook the question-mark shape on their radar for an enemy submarine.  Later, Ellington witnessed the Queequeg being attacked by the Carmelita, and decided to approach the CBB to scare Count Olaf and help the crew of the Queequeg. Count Olaf also assumed the mysterious entity was an enemy submarine."

I agree with Ellington being the one who takes the statue...

...but I don't think she found it in the Clusterous Forest. Sorry, @snicketsleuth.

8. If Georgina's reputation was really as bad as Moxie made it out to be, there is a chance that Ellington would have visited the Lumbermill in disbelief - I think it is here that she stumbles upon the statue.

9. This happens:

"With the statue, she was now in control of the CBB. Eventually she managed to track down an octopus-shaped submarine which used to belong to Hangfire, only to lose it to Count Olaf.

As Olaf escaped with the submarine (now rebaptized the Carmelita), Ellington pursued him. She used the statue to control the CBB, ordering it to seize the Carmelita. The CBB first encountered the Queequeg in close vicinity to the Queequeg. Unsure whether these two crafts were allied with each other, Ellington ordered the CBB to stand down. Captain Widdershins mistook the question-mark shape on their radar for an enemy submarine.  Later, Ellington witnessed the Queequeg being attacked by the Carmelita, and decided to approach the CBB to scare Count Olaf and help the crew of the Queequeg. Count Olaf also assumed the mysterious entity was an enemy submarine.

The Queequeg eventually escaped from the clutches of the Carmelita. While making their way to the Hotel Denouement, Olaf, Esme and Carmelita Spats realized the Baudelaire orphans’ absence and were betrayed by Fernald and Fiona who let the imprisoned youngsters start a mutiny. Ellington followed the entire mutiny from afar. The youngsters were released. Esme, Olaf and Carmelita fled. The octopus-shaped submarine was eventually given back to Ellington Feint who promised to help Fernald and Fiona if they were ever in trouble."

10. Ellington had no further use for the CBB (as she already gained her father's submarine, which was the intention) so she [presumably, most likely] discarded the statue in the sea, before it washed up on the island, as @ven10 describes.

Part 2 (Post-ASOUE) coming soon,

~ Th3r3534rch1ngr4ph, Unfortunate Theorist/Snicketologist

[free-my-boy-grumbot]

what are the religious themes and parallels of ASOUE part thirteen?

I’m so glad you asked! and completely unprompted, too :)

okay so you know that karl marx quote “religion is the opium of the people”? and how that means that religion allows its followers to turn a blind eye to societal problems and to ease people’s concerns about their life? yeah well lemony snicket did that literally. the island in The End is a result of Ishmael realising that he had lost control of VFD. originally, he wanted to create a peaceful society of noble, well-read people — this led him to enforce a black-and-white view of morality onto its members. obviously, there were people who criticised this, but believe it or not ishmael is not an open minded man. once again, he believes that there is an objective view of morality, and those questioning it are inherently evil. so, he convinced the volunteers that those people were dangerous, which led to a schism, which led to. well you know. anyways that was a gross oversimplification because that’s not what i’m talking about! what i was going to say was that he took some people affected by the schism — people who were also seeking an escape from the horrors that VFD had put them through — and he created a civilisation for them on an island. the only source of drinkable water on this island was cordial contaminated with opioids, and he knew this. in fact, he actively stopped newcomers from creating a water filtrations system. he then did everything in his power to make the inhabitants forget their old lives. he convinced them they’d ended up here by shipwreck, he made them bring him anything that washed up to determine if it was “safe”, he stored any reminders of the past on the other side of the island and banned the inhabitants from going there.

“nothing wrong with a little opium for the people!!” SIR. SIR THERE IS. Ishmael believes that peace should be achieved through any means necessary. therefore, if a problem has become too difficult to solve, he is all for simply pretending it doesn’t exist. This is why he gives the opiates to the islanders. He believes that maintaining a peaceful VFD has grown too complicated, and that the only way a peaceful society can exist is if its members unquestionably accept his rule. He not only believes morality to be black and white, but enforces this belief onto the volunteers, teaching them that following his authority is inherently “good”, and those who oppose or even question it are inherently evil. Since he couldn’t run a society like this in the “real world” — he would always have opposition, which would always mean conflict — he simply created his own, smaller world, where the civilians were too high off their balls to think critically about his leadership. After that, he only had to seem benevolent on the surface because they would all be too comfortable to dig deeper.

Now, black-and-white ethics, dictation of peace, dismissal of societal issues, and lack of scrutiny towards authority are all classic criticisms of religion, and you could definitely draw some parallels between Ishmael’s style of leadership and organised religion. This has all been quite generic antitheism so far. BUT THAT’S NOT ALL!!!

There is an apple tree on the “bad” side of the island. the tree is hollow. there is a library inside, containing any books which may remind the islanders of their past life. these mostly include books from the volunteers and firestarters, the “good” and “bad” sides of the schism. one might say it’s a sort of. a s. a sort of tree of knowledge of good and evil, if you will.

And then later in the book, klaus and violet, a man and a woman, are given an apple from that tree by a snake. classic daniel handler subtlety <3 so ofc this represents genesis, but here is where we get Wierd With It.

The apple saves the baudelaires. They were poisoned with the medusoid mycelium, and the apple immunised them. in fact, the apple is not presented in a negative light in the slightest. this has VERY interesting implications in my opinion and it makes me think that daniel handler is saying, in the bible, eve was also never wrong for eating the fruit! we would be nowhere without the knowledge of sin and death and suffering, there would be no art without it, nor would there be appreciation for the good (ok this part might be me)! eve was in the right, and so was the snake!! which is also incredibly fitting because everyone thinks that the incredibly deadly viper is evil but it actually wouldn’t hurt a fly (we know because monty tried to feed it flies :))

“ohhh ur overthinking it” yes on purpose overthinking this series is my number one hobby. anyways i just thought daniel handler was making an interesting point here :33 anyways i will add more stuff if i think of it

[miss-snicket]

That definitely doesn't parallel the greedy, heartless person we are encouraged to become to succeed under capitalism.

Someday when I'm not in grad school I want to write an asoue au where the Baudelaires return from the Island to find the world in disarray from a strain of the medusoid mycellium that turns people into zombies. It can be cured with horseradish but the supply is controlled by the sinister duo, who sell it at extortionate prices. I think it would be neat to have a zombie apocalypse story where the zombie plague could be easily cured if not for the actions of a few greedy individuals. I think that would be very interesting and not at all a commentary on the american healthcare system.