#it completely undermines like everything lemony has been saying from the start

[linguist-in-a-blanket]

That's it: everybody is doomed by the narrative!

Heroes are doomed by being in a tragedy because heroes are fucked in tragedies. But with them it's a little bit more specific because you can't ignore huge plot armor on Baudelaires through the whole thing. But it's a subversion of a subversion because theit plot armor is only one thing: they can't die. All the other fucked up stuff can and will happen to these literal children.

Villains are doomed by being villains because villains are fucked in the end. Again, Olaf does have plot armor, but only he, and only till the last book, and only for death, everything else can and will happen to him.

Minor villains, henchpeople, and nice people lured over to the dark side (carnival freaks) are fully doomed by being a cautionary tale.

Allies and minor heroes are fully doomed by being let's say parents in a Disney movie: they are needed to nail home the tragedy for heroes.

Narrator is doomed to narrate a story that brings him pain. Again, kind of a subversion without subversion because in the beginning we think he is just a narrator not a character. And then we realize he is doomed both from a meta-perspective (being a narrator in a story) and from an in-universe perspective (being a character in this story that has already happened and caring about other characters). He is fucked both because of his seeming omnisciency (in the beginning, when he seems to be outside and above the story) and because of his actual not knowing of some things (the end).

i am once again thinking about a series of unfortunate events and the way that it twists the idea of being doomed by the narrative. specifically the song at the end of the first season and the effect of having the villain, a cartoonishly evil and awful man, sing about the inescapability of tragedy. because he IS the tragedy he is what causes all the unfortunate events and suffering… but when he sings that there’s no happy endings it almost seems like he’s also trapped in the narrative. the story has already happened, its being told to us after the fact when it’s too late for anyone to change how it ends, but the song creates this strange feeling that olaf is also doomed, except he’s doomed to be the villain in this story. it’s not as if he makes any effort not to be the villain of course, but for just a moment, you realize that his fate is also already written and his role in the story cannot change because the story cannot change. he has already done all these terrible things and the story has already been written but then there’s this brief moment of awareness, where all the characters turn to the audience and say “this is a tragedy and it has no happy ending and that’s just how the story goes,” and it’s as if none of them have any control over the narrative, not even the villains. that’s just how the story goes