Administrator's Note: This is the email, as sent to me, word for word. I am merely copying and pasting here.
Working on the assumption that Beatrice is their mother I put forward the following theory:
As far as our chronology goes up to the time of the events of TCC Beatrice is not dead yet. You may call me a fool but wait here is the evidence. Look at the letter from Jacques to Lemony on pages 96-98 of the LSUA. Firstly J mentions that L should be on his way to Lake Lachrymose, this suggests that L is at that point somewhere chronologically between the events of TRR and TWW.
L is to rendez-vous with the waiter in the Anxious Clown and hear the message ÔI didnÕt realise this was a sad occasionÕ. J implies he may have to wait some time but in TWW the children receive this coded message without knowing. This suggests that at this time the waiter is waiting for Lemony.
Look further on the letter, J mentions the Ôhot air mobile home that H is always talking about buildingÕ this obviously refers to Hector in TVV. Obviously Jacques is still alive when he writes this letter as he is killed in TVV by which time H has completed the Deus Ex Machina.
Now go a little further back in the letter J says ÔYou must not communicate with B at all, not even by telegram or carrier pigeonÕ, now assuming that ÔBÕ = Beatrice this means that Beatrice, whoever she is, is still alive when Jacques writes the letter. If the letter is written at the time of the events of TWW then it means that Beatrice is alive after the fire in TBB. All this works on the assumption from the fairly compelling evidence that she is the childrenÕs mother.
NOW, here is how it ties in with the theory about the end of the book. Consider three things.
1. Violet is 14 years old
2. Beatrice was killed in the afternoon and the Baudelaire fire was in the morning
3. Lemony says at one point that he has/had not seen B for 15 years when he meets her and is about to warn her about Olaf in some way. In fact has been banned from seeing her, perhaps since they split up and Beatrice left the VFD?
So here it is Beatrice is the survivor of the Baudelaire fire, she is not dead at the time when the events of the books take place, she will however be killed in Book the Thirteenth. This would be because Lemony has not seen her since Violet was born and that in book the thirteenth he will meet up with B, O, and the orphans at last.
At this point something will happen. Beatrice will be killed a second time around, this is the point at which Lemony becomes involved in the story and feels compelled to write the story of their lives. This also explains the problem with B being killed in the afternoon and the baudelaire fire being in the morning Ð they happened on two separate occasions. Lemony has been in hot pursuit of Olaf for some reason, perhaps to bring him to justice, or maybe even to save the children. But he is not pursuing in order to research the BaudelaireÕs story, that is coming after.
Think about it, some people have been working on the assumption that Lemony is following the children, writing the books as he goes. Yet there are hints that he is in fact writing them years later, such as when in TRR he mentions Klaus thinking about something Ôyears laterÕ he also says in THH that ÔI do not know where the children are nowÕ (to paraphrase) which is ambiguous but implies, to my mind, that he does not know from a point of view after the events, not from the point of view of someone in pursuit.
The other thing is that Lemony would not necessarily have known that their lives were filled with such misfortune if he was only a few steps behind them as he was writing. It makes more sense that the whole collection is being ÔresearchedÕ years in the future after having only really found out about them right at the end.
All this also explains LSÕs comment that there is ÔSome truth, but not total truthÕ in the idea that B is the baudÕs mum. She is their mum, but the total truth is that she is not dead yet. Also the red herrings, they are not there to contradict, but to confuse. IÕm not 100% sure about this argument but it is compelling, eh?
Further evidence for this is found in TAA, when Snicket says that when he was at Prufrock Prep, it had been closed for a good many years.
Counterevidence, of a possibly ambiguous nature is this: Lemony Snicket likes to draw references from other authors, including Edgar Allen Poe. Poe, now, wrote alot of poetry about a girl named Lenore, who he was in love with.
Now, it is possible to draw a parallel between Poe and Snicket.
1) Lenore and Poe were going to marry, but Lenore ended up falling in love with someone else.
2) Poe was left brokenhearted and so mentions Lenore many times throughout his following poems.
3)Lenore died after marrying her new groom.
Sound familiar? Substitute Lemony for Poe, and Beatrice for Lenore, and you got the same story. So, thereÕs some information that might prove that Beatrice is in fact, dead.
In case that totally and completely confused you, allow me to clarify.
At the time that Snicket is researching and writing the Series of Unfortunate Events, it is several years AFTER the events have actually taken place.
Consider it this way: there are two chronologies going on, The Snicket Chronology, and the Baudelaire Chronology. The Baud chron.(BC) is what the main series is about- The Bauds staying with Olaf, and Monty, and Josephine, etc etc.
The Snicket Chron. is about Snicket and the things he has been through. The Snicket Chron (SC), extends back before the BC, and after the BC, which is when he is writing the books.
Now, Prufrock, when he got to go research it, was closed for several years, which tells us that he is writing these books at least several years after the SOUE ends.
what Restless_Boy is suggesting is that at the end of the BC (end of Book 13) we'll see everyone there- Olaf, the Bauds, Lemony and Beatrice, and K. Things will be resolved- who the Baud's mother is, who Beatrice is, what K's name is, what VFD stands for, etc etc. Beatrice will be killed by Olaf, K will probably be killed someway or another, Lemony and the Baud's escape (I'm leaving which Bauds open for now, cause I don't know how things are going to end for them), and stricken with grief over the death of Beatrice, and the death of his sister (one of which is the Baud's mom), Lemony goes back to research how it all came about, and starts at the very beginning, the fire at the Baud's house, which set them on the path which would lead to the death of their mother.
In the SC, Beatrice is dead, but in the BC, Beatrice may still be alive. This is all conjecture, and there is no proof in the books, but it still seems that it may be a possibility.
Working on the assumption that Beatrice is their mother I put forward the following theory:
As far as our chronology goes up to the time of the events of TCC Beatrice is not dead yet. You may call me a fool but wait here is the evidence. Look at the letter from Jacques to Lemony on pages 96-98 of the LSUA. Firstly J mentions that L should be on his way to Lake Lachrymose, this suggests that L is at that point somewhere chronologically between the events of TRR and TWW.
L is to rendez-vous with the waiter in the Anxious Clown and hear the message ÔI didnÕt realise this was a sad occasionÕ. J implies he may have to wait some time but in TWW the children receive this coded message without knowing. This suggests that at this time the waiter is waiting for Lemony.
Look further on the letter, J mentions the Ôhot air mobile home that H is always talking about buildingÕ this obviously refers to Hector in TVV. Obviously Jacques is still alive when he writes this letter as he is killed in TVV by which time H has completed the Deus Ex Machina.
Now go a little further back in the letter J says ÔYou must not communicate with B at all, not even by telegram or carrier pigeonÕ, now assuming that ÔBÕ = Beatrice this means that Beatrice, whoever she is, is still alive when Jacques writes the letter. If the letter is written at the time of the events of TWW then it means that Beatrice is alive after the fire in TBB. All this works on the assumption from the fairly compelling evidence that she is the childrenÕs mother.
NOW, here is how it ties in with the theory about the end of the book. Consider three things.
1. Violet is 14 years old
2. Beatrice was killed in the afternoon and the Baudelaire fire was in the morning
3. Lemony says at one point that he has/had not seen B for 15 years when he meets her and is about to warn her about Olaf in some way. In fact has been banned from seeing her, perhaps since they split up and Beatrice left the VFD?
So here it is Beatrice is the survivor of the Baudelaire fire, she is not dead at the time when the events of the books take place, she will however be killed in Book the Thirteenth. This would be because Lemony has not seen her since Violet was born and that in book the thirteenth he will meet up with B, O, and the orphans at last.
At this point something will happen. Beatrice will be killed a second time around, this is the point at which Lemony becomes involved in the story and feels compelled to write the story of their lives. This also explains the problem with B being killed in the afternoon and the baudelaire fire being in the morning Ð they happened on two separate occasions. Lemony has been in hot pursuit of Olaf for some reason, perhaps to bring him to justice, or maybe even to save the children. But he is not pursuing in order to research the BaudelaireÕs story, that is coming after.
Think about it, some people have been working on the assumption that Lemony is following the children, writing the books as he goes. Yet there are hints that he is in fact writing them years later, such as when in TRR he mentions Klaus thinking about something Ôyears laterÕ he also says in THH that ÔI do not know where the children are nowÕ (to paraphrase) which is ambiguous but implies, to my mind, that he does not know from a point of view after the events, not from the point of view of someone in pursuit.
The other thing is that Lemony would not necessarily have known that their lives were filled with such misfortune if he was only a few steps behind them as he was writing. It makes more sense that the whole collection is being ÔresearchedÕ years in the future after having only really found out about them right at the end.
All this also explains LSÕs comment that there is ÔSome truth, but not total truthÕ in the idea that B is the baudÕs mum. She is their mum, but the total truth is that she is not dead yet. Also the red herrings, they are not there to contradict, but to confuse. IÕm not 100% sure about this argument but it is compelling, eh?
Further evidence for this is found in TAA, when Snicket says that when he was at Prufrock Prep, it had been closed for a good many years.
Counterevidence, of a possibly ambiguous nature is this: Lemony Snicket likes to draw references from other authors, including Edgar Allen Poe. Poe, now, wrote alot of poetry about a girl named Lenore, who he was in love with.
Now, it is possible to draw a parallel between Poe and Snicket.
1) Lenore and Poe were going to marry, but Lenore ended up falling in love with someone else.
2) Poe was left brokenhearted and so mentions Lenore many times throughout his following poems.
3)Lenore died after marrying her new groom.
Sound familiar? Substitute Lemony for Poe, and Beatrice for Lenore, and you got the same story. So, thereÕs some information that might prove that Beatrice is in fact, dead.
In case that totally and completely confused you, allow me to clarify.
At the time that Snicket is researching and writing the Series of Unfortunate Events, it is several years AFTER the events have actually taken place.
Consider it this way: there are two chronologies going on, The Snicket Chronology, and the Baudelaire Chronology. The Baud chron.(BC) is what the main series is about- The Bauds staying with Olaf, and Monty, and Josephine, etc etc.
The Snicket Chron. is about Snicket and the things he has been through. The Snicket Chron (SC), extends back before the BC, and after the BC, which is when he is writing the books.
Now, Prufrock, when he got to go research it, was closed for several years, which tells us that he is writing these books at least several years after the SOUE ends.
what Restless_Boy is suggesting is that at the end of the BC (end of Book 13) we'll see everyone there- Olaf, the Bauds, Lemony and Beatrice, and K. Things will be resolved- who the Baud's mother is, who Beatrice is, what K's name is, what VFD stands for, etc etc. Beatrice will be killed by Olaf, K will probably be killed someway or another, Lemony and the Baud's escape (I'm leaving which Bauds open for now, cause I don't know how things are going to end for them), and stricken with grief over the death of Beatrice, and the death of his sister (one of which is the Baud's mom), Lemony goes back to research how it all came about, and starts at the very beginning, the fire at the Baud's house, which set them on the path which would lead to the death of their mother.
In the SC, Beatrice is dead, but in the BC, Beatrice may still be alive. This is all conjecture, and there is no proof in the books, but it still seems that it may be a possibility.