For Beatrice- Darling, dearest, dead.- the dedication to The Bad Beginning
For the other dedications to the other books, click here.
On this page, I will be presenting three sides of information. The first, is evidence that Beatrice is not the Baudelaire's mom. The Second section is evidence that Beatrice IS the Bauds mom, and the third is evidence that could be bent either way, depending on how you look at it.
Based on new information from TGG, Beatrice as the Baud's mom has been practically completely eliminated. We'll look at that iformation in the first section, and we'll leave the second section up, since there is still an extremely slim, very slight, practically and for all essential purposes, nonexistant chance that Beatrice is still the Baud's mom.
Beatrice, from information I've been able to gather from the books (and as should be obvious to the most casual reader) was Lemony Snicket's true love. He cared for her more then glittering diamonds, or burnished gold. And then one day, something happened, and she was killed. She may even have been murdered, but that can't be proved yet. There is only a very tenuous connection in two of the books, and I'll put the passages here, and let you decide if that means that Beatrice was murdered.
The first is from The Austere Academy, pgs 167-168:
"...I entered the grand ballroom, I felt as if Lemony Snicket had disappeared. I was wearing clothes I had never worn before... I felt like a different person. And because I felt like a different person, I dared to approach a woman I had been forbidden to see for the rest of my life. She was alone on teh veranda... and costumed as a dragonfly... As my puruers scurried around the party, trying to guess which guest was me, I slipped out onto the veranda, and gave here the message I'd been trying ot give her for fifteen long and lonely years. "Beatrice," I cried, Count Olaf is
"I cannot go on. It makes me weep to think of that evening, and of the dark and desperate times that followed..."
The Second is from Hostile Hospital, pg 33:
"And I would hop like nobody has ever hopped before if I could go back to that terrible Thursday, and stop Beatrice from attending that afternoon tea with Esmé squalor for the first time."
What else do we know about Beatrice? We know that she was probably a member of VFD (LSUA, pg 97), and that she was married to someone else, much to Lemony's chagrin. (Austere Academy, pg 130)
Alright, is there any other information we can glean about Beatrice that might help us discover who she is?
Section 1: Beatrice is NOT The Bauds Mom!!!
In TEE, when Jerome is talking about Mrs. Baudelaire being on mt fraught, and swooping down out of the sky... You'll note that he never really says that Mrs. Baudelaire was carried away by the whatever it was. Also, at the end of the book, there is a HUGE statue of a Red Herring.
In THH, when Carrie E. Abelabudite is mentioned, there is also a Ned H Rirger in the list, which, as we know, anagrams out to Red Herring.
Also, in LSUA, when it mentions the lead actress, Beatrice, needing to whistle Mozart's whatever with a mouthful of crackers, the performance takes place at the Ned H Rirger theatre.
So, we have three ties between Mrs. Baudelaire and Beatrice, and all of them have a red herring somewhere close to them.
Another problem we come across, is one of timing. Attend to this information, sent into me by an Angry Dwarf:
"Well, the Baudelaire parents died in the morning, correct? It's mentioned several times throughout the series; "The Baudelaires thought about that terrible morning..." and so on. So that's that: Mr. and Mrs. Baudelaire were killed in the morning.
"Okay--I was re-reading THH, and took notice of part of it on page 196: "You might read a book on how to have a successful marriage, when the only woman you will ever love has married someone else and then perished one terrible afternoon."
"So the Baudelaire parents died in the morning, and Beatrice died in the afternoon. "
In The Slippery Slope We read a letter from Lemony to his sister, describing a recipe that contains "Sliced mango, black beans and chopped celery mixed with black pepper, lime juice and olive oil."
Eleven pages letter, we see Sunny remembering her mother, in which her mother describes the same recipe to her.
Add to that the answer that is in the Lemony Snicket Q+A, (Some truth, but not total truth) and we are led to believe that Beatrice may in fact NOT be the Baudelaire's mother.
And now, from the Grim Grotto, pg 310-311: "Captain Widdershins was wrong... to insist, as he did so many years ago, that a that a story in the Daily Puncitilio was completely true, and to show this article to so many volunteers, including [emphasis mine] THE BAUDELAIRE PARENTS, the Snicket Siblings, and THE WOMAN I HAPPENED TO LOVE."
Here, we have for the first time in the series, Beatrice and Mrs Baudelaire mentioned as two seperate people by the man who should know. Still, Beatrice is not mentioned by name, which is why I'm going to leave the evidence for Beatrice as the Baud's mom here. Beatrice is, however, always mentioned as THE woman that Lemony loves (references to A woman that he loves may or may not be her, but that's semantics and we won't quibble over that), and so it's a 99.9% chance that it's Beatrice he's referencing.
Section 2: Beatrice is the Bauds Mom!
The Ersatz Elevator, pg 27:
"Ah," Jerome said, "you're adventurous! Your mother was adventurous too. [referring to Mrs. Baudelaire] You know, she and I were very good friends a ways back. We hiked up Mount Fraught with some friends- gosh it must have been twenty years ago. Mt Fraught was kown for having dangerous animals on it, but your mohter wasn't afraid. But then, swooping out of the sky-"
He is then interrupted by Esmé, who asks who is at the door.
Hold the phone, the skeptical soul says. What does that have to do with Beatrice? On the face of it, nothing. But when put in conjunction with another passage from an earlier book, everything. Attend:
The Wide Window, pg 126: "I have seen many amazing things in my long and troubled life history. I have seen a series of corridors built entirely out of human skulls. I have seen a volcano erupt and send a wall of lava crawling toward a small village. I have seen a a woman I loved picked up by an enormous eagle and flown to its high mountain nest."
A Snicket fan who wishes to remain anonymous (but is NOT a researcher) writes in with this bit:
"I have more information that Beatrice is the Baudlaire's mother. In the Wide Window, Klaus says that his mother could whistle with crackers in her mouth, and her special was Mozart's Fourteenth Symphony. In the "Unauthorized Autobiography" on p. 79 it says, " But the most dispiriting replacement is that of the lead actress. My faithful readers will realize that I am somewhat prejudiced in this case, as I am engaged to be married to the original actress, but last night's performance by Emse (?- her last name was smudged in the program) was simply dreadful. She cannot act. She cannot sing. And she cannot whistle Mozart's fourteenth symphony, as the play -the original play, that is- requires." That's proof enough for me!"
Is that still not enough proof? Let's look at the timeline then. The Baudelaire mansion burns down, and the Baudelaire parents die. The orphans begin their quest. Sometime later, Lemony Snicket picks up what has happened, and begins to follow them around, getting the information he needs to tell the stories. By the time the first book is published, the Baudelaire hime has burned down a long time before, and the children are either at Aunt Josephine's house, or at Prufrock Prep, and LS is traveling to Uncle Monty's house to research the next chapter.
This answer could also help to explain why LS is so obsessed with the story of the Baudelaires. Because they are her children. Yes, that's what I've been driving at in case you didn't catch it. Beatrice is the Baudelaire's mother. It all fits in. Beatrice married another man (Mr. Baudelaire), and not Lemony. She bore three children, and then was killed shortly thereafter in the fire at the Baudelaire mansion. LS finds out about it, and travels around, following the Baudelaire's trail, to make sure that the surviving relatives of his true love are safe and sound.
(However, this is refuted by other quotes from books 4 through 11. Stephanie elucidates:
Snicket sees it as his duty, his job to write down the Events, nnnot because of what happened to Beatrice.
"I have promised to write down the entire history of these poor children" Book 4
"It is my solemn duty to stay up all night researching and writing the history of these three hapless youngsters" Book 5
"I have sworn to write down these tales of the Baudelaire orphans" Book 6
"It is my solemn and sacred occupation to research each detail of the Baudelaire childrens' lives and write them all down" Book 7
"I have sworn to research this story" Book 8
"Sadly for me, my time is filled with researching and recording the displeasing and disenchanting lives of the Baudelaire orphans" Book 9
"Unfortunately, I have dedicated my life to researching and recording the sad tale of the Baudelaire Orphans" Book 10
"As a dedicated author who has pledged to keep recording the depressing story of the Baudelaires, I must continue to delve deep into the cavernous depths of the orphans' lives" Book 11)
It also fits in with the alliteration that LS likes to use. "Bad Beginning," "Wide Window," "Austere Academy," "Vile Village," "Damocles Dock," "Lousy Lane," so why the heck not "Beatrice Baudelaire"?
One final bit of clinching evidence is to be found in Hostile Hospital, pg 158:
One of the names on the list that Klaus and Sunny use to find Violet is the name Carrie E. Abelabudite.Rearrange the letters, and what do you have? Beatrice Baudelaire.
Either Way Evidence
(from TCC, p 42) Violet says, “Mother taught me how to draw fake scars on myself when she appeared in the play about the murderer.” Beatrice was an actress, was she not? (Thanks to Kristen).
TO me, this could lend itself to either side. We would need to determine if Beatrice (also an actress) has been in any plays with a murderer. unfortunately, the only mention we see of Beatrice being in a play (LSUA- the Snicket Review) it doesnt' mention a murderer or scars.
After researching the matter, I have arrived at the conclusion that if she is not the Bauds mom, Beatrice is probably someone we haven't met, if she isn't Mrs. Quagmire. She could very well be Mrs. Quagmire, because all the information fits, and Mrs. Quagmire and Mrs. Baudelaire being sisters fits into the theory as well.
Another possible answer, is that Beatrice is Mr Baudelaire's sister, which I personally think to be more likely. After all, wouldn't it be great if the Red Herring in the hospital list, was actualla double red herring?
Beatrice is not the Baud's mom, thus the Beatrice Baudelaire is a red herring, but then that's a red herring as well, since Beatrice, as Mr Baud's sister, would still be named Beatrice Baudelaire.
The only problem I have with this, is that Lemony says Beatrice married someone else, so would her last name NOT be Baudelaire anymore? Possibly. What if she married Mr Baudelaire's brother? That would make her a BAudelaire, but not the Baud's father, make the Beatrie Baudelaire thing true, and also make sense that the Bauds know who she is- their aunt.
For the other dedications to the other books, click here.
On this page, I will be presenting three sides of information. The first, is evidence that Beatrice is not the Baudelaire's mom. The Second section is evidence that Beatrice IS the Bauds mom, and the third is evidence that could be bent either way, depending on how you look at it.
Based on new information from TGG, Beatrice as the Baud's mom has been practically completely eliminated. We'll look at that iformation in the first section, and we'll leave the second section up, since there is still an extremely slim, very slight, practically and for all essential purposes, nonexistant chance that Beatrice is still the Baud's mom.
Beatrice, from information I've been able to gather from the books (and as should be obvious to the most casual reader) was Lemony Snicket's true love. He cared for her more then glittering diamonds, or burnished gold. And then one day, something happened, and she was killed. She may even have been murdered, but that can't be proved yet. There is only a very tenuous connection in two of the books, and I'll put the passages here, and let you decide if that means that Beatrice was murdered.
The first is from The Austere Academy, pgs 167-168:
"...I entered the grand ballroom, I felt as if Lemony Snicket had disappeared. I was wearing clothes I had never worn before... I felt like a different person. And because I felt like a different person, I dared to approach a woman I had been forbidden to see for the rest of my life. She was alone on teh veranda... and costumed as a dragonfly... As my puruers scurried around the party, trying to guess which guest was me, I slipped out onto the veranda, and gave here the message I'd been trying ot give her for fifteen long and lonely years. "Beatrice," I cried, Count Olaf is
"I cannot go on. It makes me weep to think of that evening, and of the dark and desperate times that followed..."
The Second is from Hostile Hospital, pg 33:
"And I would hop like nobody has ever hopped before if I could go back to that terrible Thursday, and stop Beatrice from attending that afternoon tea with Esmé squalor for the first time."
What else do we know about Beatrice? We know that she was probably a member of VFD (LSUA, pg 97), and that she was married to someone else, much to Lemony's chagrin. (Austere Academy, pg 130)
Alright, is there any other information we can glean about Beatrice that might help us discover who she is?
Section 1: Beatrice is NOT The Bauds Mom!!!
In TEE, when Jerome is talking about Mrs. Baudelaire being on mt fraught, and swooping down out of the sky... You'll note that he never really says that Mrs. Baudelaire was carried away by the whatever it was. Also, at the end of the book, there is a HUGE statue of a Red Herring.
In THH, when Carrie E. Abelabudite is mentioned, there is also a Ned H Rirger in the list, which, as we know, anagrams out to Red Herring.
Also, in LSUA, when it mentions the lead actress, Beatrice, needing to whistle Mozart's whatever with a mouthful of crackers, the performance takes place at the Ned H Rirger theatre.
So, we have three ties between Mrs. Baudelaire and Beatrice, and all of them have a red herring somewhere close to them.
Another problem we come across, is one of timing. Attend to this information, sent into me by an Angry Dwarf:
"Well, the Baudelaire parents died in the morning, correct? It's mentioned several times throughout the series; "The Baudelaires thought about that terrible morning..." and so on. So that's that: Mr. and Mrs. Baudelaire were killed in the morning.
"Okay--I was re-reading THH, and took notice of part of it on page 196: "You might read a book on how to have a successful marriage, when the only woman you will ever love has married someone else and then perished one terrible afternoon."
"So the Baudelaire parents died in the morning, and Beatrice died in the afternoon. "
In The Slippery Slope We read a letter from Lemony to his sister, describing a recipe that contains "Sliced mango, black beans and chopped celery mixed with black pepper, lime juice and olive oil."
Eleven pages letter, we see Sunny remembering her mother, in which her mother describes the same recipe to her.
Add to that the answer that is in the Lemony Snicket Q+A, (Some truth, but not total truth) and we are led to believe that Beatrice may in fact NOT be the Baudelaire's mother.
And now, from the Grim Grotto, pg 310-311: "Captain Widdershins was wrong... to insist, as he did so many years ago, that a that a story in the Daily Puncitilio was completely true, and to show this article to so many volunteers, including [emphasis mine] THE BAUDELAIRE PARENTS, the Snicket Siblings, and THE WOMAN I HAPPENED TO LOVE."
Here, we have for the first time in the series, Beatrice and Mrs Baudelaire mentioned as two seperate people by the man who should know. Still, Beatrice is not mentioned by name, which is why I'm going to leave the evidence for Beatrice as the Baud's mom here. Beatrice is, however, always mentioned as THE woman that Lemony loves (references to A woman that he loves may or may not be her, but that's semantics and we won't quibble over that), and so it's a 99.9% chance that it's Beatrice he's referencing.
Section 2: Beatrice is the Bauds Mom!
The Ersatz Elevator, pg 27:
"Ah," Jerome said, "you're adventurous! Your mother was adventurous too. [referring to Mrs. Baudelaire] You know, she and I were very good friends a ways back. We hiked up Mount Fraught with some friends- gosh it must have been twenty years ago. Mt Fraught was kown for having dangerous animals on it, but your mohter wasn't afraid. But then, swooping out of the sky-"
He is then interrupted by Esmé, who asks who is at the door.
Hold the phone, the skeptical soul says. What does that have to do with Beatrice? On the face of it, nothing. But when put in conjunction with another passage from an earlier book, everything. Attend:
The Wide Window, pg 126: "I have seen many amazing things in my long and troubled life history. I have seen a series of corridors built entirely out of human skulls. I have seen a volcano erupt and send a wall of lava crawling toward a small village. I have seen a a woman I loved picked up by an enormous eagle and flown to its high mountain nest."
A Snicket fan who wishes to remain anonymous (but is NOT a researcher) writes in with this bit:
"I have more information that Beatrice is the Baudlaire's mother. In the Wide Window, Klaus says that his mother could whistle with crackers in her mouth, and her special was Mozart's Fourteenth Symphony. In the "Unauthorized Autobiography" on p. 79 it says, " But the most dispiriting replacement is that of the lead actress. My faithful readers will realize that I am somewhat prejudiced in this case, as I am engaged to be married to the original actress, but last night's performance by Emse (?- her last name was smudged in the program) was simply dreadful. She cannot act. She cannot sing. And she cannot whistle Mozart's fourteenth symphony, as the play -the original play, that is- requires." That's proof enough for me!"
Is that still not enough proof? Let's look at the timeline then. The Baudelaire mansion burns down, and the Baudelaire parents die. The orphans begin their quest. Sometime later, Lemony Snicket picks up what has happened, and begins to follow them around, getting the information he needs to tell the stories. By the time the first book is published, the Baudelaire hime has burned down a long time before, and the children are either at Aunt Josephine's house, or at Prufrock Prep, and LS is traveling to Uncle Monty's house to research the next chapter.
This answer could also help to explain why LS is so obsessed with the story of the Baudelaires. Because they are her children. Yes, that's what I've been driving at in case you didn't catch it. Beatrice is the Baudelaire's mother. It all fits in. Beatrice married another man (Mr. Baudelaire), and not Lemony. She bore three children, and then was killed shortly thereafter in the fire at the Baudelaire mansion. LS finds out about it, and travels around, following the Baudelaire's trail, to make sure that the surviving relatives of his true love are safe and sound.
(However, this is refuted by other quotes from books 4 through 11. Stephanie elucidates:
Snicket sees it as his duty, his job to write down the Events, nnnot because of what happened to Beatrice.
"I have promised to write down the entire history of these poor children" Book 4
"It is my solemn duty to stay up all night researching and writing the history of these three hapless youngsters" Book 5
"I have sworn to write down these tales of the Baudelaire orphans" Book 6
"It is my solemn and sacred occupation to research each detail of the Baudelaire childrens' lives and write them all down" Book 7
"I have sworn to research this story" Book 8
"Sadly for me, my time is filled with researching and recording the displeasing and disenchanting lives of the Baudelaire orphans" Book 9
"Unfortunately, I have dedicated my life to researching and recording the sad tale of the Baudelaire Orphans" Book 10
"As a dedicated author who has pledged to keep recording the depressing story of the Baudelaires, I must continue to delve deep into the cavernous depths of the orphans' lives" Book 11)
It also fits in with the alliteration that LS likes to use. "Bad Beginning," "Wide Window," "Austere Academy," "Vile Village," "Damocles Dock," "Lousy Lane," so why the heck not "Beatrice Baudelaire"?
One final bit of clinching evidence is to be found in Hostile Hospital, pg 158:
One of the names on the list that Klaus and Sunny use to find Violet is the name Carrie E. Abelabudite.Rearrange the letters, and what do you have? Beatrice Baudelaire.
Either Way Evidence
(from TCC, p 42) Violet says, “Mother taught me how to draw fake scars on myself when she appeared in the play about the murderer.” Beatrice was an actress, was she not? (Thanks to Kristen).
TO me, this could lend itself to either side. We would need to determine if Beatrice (also an actress) has been in any plays with a murderer. unfortunately, the only mention we see of Beatrice being in a play (LSUA- the Snicket Review) it doesnt' mention a murderer or scars.
After researching the matter, I have arrived at the conclusion that if she is not the Bauds mom, Beatrice is probably someone we haven't met, if she isn't Mrs. Quagmire. She could very well be Mrs. Quagmire, because all the information fits, and Mrs. Quagmire and Mrs. Baudelaire being sisters fits into the theory as well.
Another possible answer, is that Beatrice is Mr Baudelaire's sister, which I personally think to be more likely. After all, wouldn't it be great if the Red Herring in the hospital list, was actualla double red herring?
Beatrice is not the Baud's mom, thus the Beatrice Baudelaire is a red herring, but then that's a red herring as well, since Beatrice, as Mr Baud's sister, would still be named Beatrice Baudelaire.
The only problem I have with this, is that Lemony says Beatrice married someone else, so would her last name NOT be Baudelaire anymore? Possibly. What if she married Mr Baudelaire's brother? That would make her a BAudelaire, but not the Baud's father, make the Beatrie Baudelaire thing true, and also make sense that the Bauds know who she is- their aunt.