As it stands, there are currently two front runners for who the Baudelaire mother is. The first, obviously, is Beatrice, but this is beginning to look less and less like the fact of the matter. For more information, which I am not going to repeat here, please see the question Who is Beatrice?. It is explained in depth on that page why or why not she is the Baud's mom.
The other suspect, which was looking more and more like the answer, is that Lemony Snicket's sister, K, AKA Kit is the Baud's mom. Here's the reasoning why, but unfortunately, it all means nothing, due to information from the end of The Grim Grotto
Whoa there huckleberry, come on back to the stable, you are thinking. Why did we think that she was? Because of a recipe, a photograph, and 2 quotes.
The first is the photograph, which was originally seen in Hostile Hospital, on pg thirteen of the Snicket File. It is a photo of a man and a woman (Mr and Mrs Baud, we know that for a fact) as well as two other men, one Jacques Snicket, and the other very probably Lemony Snicket.
Now, why would a picture of the BAUD parents be in the SNICKET file? Well, it would make sense if the photo was a family photo- J, K, and L all together, with K's husband (Mr Baudelaire) of course, cause he's like a brother to them. The Bauds know Jacques. Violet recalls hearing the name Snicket, which she would have heard as a child, if Lemony and Jacques were her uncles.
Next are the Quotes. At the VFD Social, the one who is known only as K says "I KNOW what the word 'Infiltrated' means!"
This is interesting because as we all know, Klaus uses that particular phrase all the time. And children tend to pick up phrases from their parents, don't they? That's all circumstantial evidence right there, but it's there nonetheless. Coming to the second quote, in the notes at the back of the BB:TRE there is a refrence to page 25 where Lemony explaines how hard it has been to count the eyes in Count Olaf's house, at the end of which he mentions that his sister has proposed that some of the eyes may have hid secret peepholes as in the Baudelaire home. How would she know that unless she was very close to them or better yet, lived there.
Finally, on pg 101 of TSS, after boring us with the details of the climb through the cave, Snicket launches into a letter to his sister, in which he details a recipe for a delicious chilled salad that his sister told him about.
ELEVEN PAGES LATER... we read about Sunny watching her mother making a delicious recipe, involving the EXACT SAME ingredients. That's some more circumstantial evidence, but it's still pretty strong there.
I feel I owe a couple of people a somewhat big apology. it seems that two people have emailed me and told me that they had actually come up with this theory several months ago, and they were very offended that I hadn't given them the credit for it. For that, I apologize. I offer no excuses, but will explain that one of two things happened. Either I accidentally deleted it, or dismissed it out of hand. Either way, the fault was mine, and I hereby renounce theory as my own. I apologize wholeheartedly to Morgan and Stacy, who originally came up with this theory, and I humbly beg your forgiveness.
That being said, this theory has been officially debunked, as of the last 2 pages of The Grim Grotto. In the final two pages, the Baudelaire's follow directions given to them by Quigley Quagmire to go to Briny Breach and climb into a taxi, where a woman is waiting. The Bauds don't recognize her, and Violet asks who she is. The Woman replies "I'm Kit Snicket," thus giving us what the K stands for, as well as the knowledge that K is no longer the front runner for the Baudelaire Mother. So that raises the question: if it's not Kit, and it's not Beatrice, then just WHO IS the Bauds mom? We have absolutely no way of knowing at this point who it could be. Of all the female characters we've met, none of them fit the bill.
Justice Strauss (not recognized)
Aunt Josephine (dead, and their Aunt, anyway)
Esmé Squalor (Though we don't know her maiden name, we know she isn't the Baud's mom simply because a, they don't recognize her, and b, she doesn't act like it)
Beatrice - Not the Bauds mom (Beatrice page updated as well)
The Woman with Hair but no Beard- I wouldn't bet on it. I can't imagine anyone who raised the Bauds as being that evil.
The woman who swam up to the Queequeg in TGG. - This is the most interesting new character- who was it? The Baudelaire mom? or Kit? or someone else entirely? Click here for analysis on this issue.
The other suspect, which was looking more and more like the answer, is that Lemony Snicket's sister, K, AKA Kit is the Baud's mom. Here's the reasoning why, but unfortunately, it all means nothing, due to information from the end of The Grim Grotto
Whoa there huckleberry, come on back to the stable, you are thinking. Why did we think that she was? Because of a recipe, a photograph, and 2 quotes.
The first is the photograph, which was originally seen in Hostile Hospital, on pg thirteen of the Snicket File. It is a photo of a man and a woman (Mr and Mrs Baud, we know that for a fact) as well as two other men, one Jacques Snicket, and the other very probably Lemony Snicket.
Now, why would a picture of the BAUD parents be in the SNICKET file? Well, it would make sense if the photo was a family photo- J, K, and L all together, with K's husband (Mr Baudelaire) of course, cause he's like a brother to them. The Bauds know Jacques. Violet recalls hearing the name Snicket, which she would have heard as a child, if Lemony and Jacques were her uncles.
Next are the Quotes. At the VFD Social, the one who is known only as K says "I KNOW what the word 'Infiltrated' means!"
This is interesting because as we all know, Klaus uses that particular phrase all the time. And children tend to pick up phrases from their parents, don't they? That's all circumstantial evidence right there, but it's there nonetheless. Coming to the second quote, in the notes at the back of the BB:TRE there is a refrence to page 25 where Lemony explaines how hard it has been to count the eyes in Count Olaf's house, at the end of which he mentions that his sister has proposed that some of the eyes may have hid secret peepholes as in the Baudelaire home. How would she know that unless she was very close to them or better yet, lived there.
Finally, on pg 101 of TSS, after boring us with the details of the climb through the cave, Snicket launches into a letter to his sister, in which he details a recipe for a delicious chilled salad that his sister told him about.
ELEVEN PAGES LATER... we read about Sunny watching her mother making a delicious recipe, involving the EXACT SAME ingredients. That's some more circumstantial evidence, but it's still pretty strong there.
I feel I owe a couple of people a somewhat big apology. it seems that two people have emailed me and told me that they had actually come up with this theory several months ago, and they were very offended that I hadn't given them the credit for it. For that, I apologize. I offer no excuses, but will explain that one of two things happened. Either I accidentally deleted it, or dismissed it out of hand. Either way, the fault was mine, and I hereby renounce theory as my own. I apologize wholeheartedly to Morgan and Stacy, who originally came up with this theory, and I humbly beg your forgiveness.
That being said, this theory has been officially debunked, as of the last 2 pages of The Grim Grotto. In the final two pages, the Baudelaire's follow directions given to them by Quigley Quagmire to go to Briny Breach and climb into a taxi, where a woman is waiting. The Bauds don't recognize her, and Violet asks who she is. The Woman replies "I'm Kit Snicket," thus giving us what the K stands for, as well as the knowledge that K is no longer the front runner for the Baudelaire Mother. So that raises the question: if it's not Kit, and it's not Beatrice, then just WHO IS the Bauds mom? We have absolutely no way of knowing at this point who it could be. Of all the female characters we've met, none of them fit the bill.
Justice Strauss (not recognized)
Aunt Josephine (dead, and their Aunt, anyway)
Esmé Squalor (Though we don't know her maiden name, we know she isn't the Baud's mom simply because a, they don't recognize her, and b, she doesn't act like it)
Beatrice - Not the Bauds mom (Beatrice page updated as well)
The Woman with Hair but no Beard- I wouldn't bet on it. I can't imagine anyone who raised the Bauds as being that evil.
The woman who swam up to the Queequeg in TGG. - This is the most interesting new character- who was it? The Baudelaire mom? or Kit? or someone else entirely? Click here for analysis on this issue.