“You can try to push back against
the troubles of this world, but trouble is like the tide, and it always
returns.”
A Series
of Unfortunate Events S3
E7, ‘The End’ (2019)
How to generically characterise
Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events? Well, I suppose you might call
it something like Victorian-gothic-esque absurdist metafiction with strong
elements of social satire. Or on the other hand, you might decide that, at its
core, it’s really a coming-of-age story. I’m going to work from the Netflix
adaptation rather than the books, simply for ease-of-access reasons.1
Spoilers ahead.
 |
| Many thanks to Paperguest at newgrounds.com for this very smart depiction of Count Olaf by one of his less-than-subtle aliases. |
One day at the beach, Violet, Klaus,
and Sunny Baudelaire are informed by family friend Mr. Poe that their parents
have perished in a terrible fire. Thenceforth they are passed like so many hot
potatoes from one (invariably incompetent if not downright villanous) guardian
to another, their footsteps always dogged by misery in the form of the most
villanous villain of all, Count Olaf, who wants to kill them and steal their
fortune before they are old enough to inherit it. Along the way, they discover
that their parents, Count Olaf, and many more of the people they encounter
belonged to a secret organisation called VFD: the Volunteer Fire Department.
Once, VFD was driven by the noble goal of dousing fires both literal and
figurative, but then there was a schism, in which one side decided it would
rather be setting the fires than putting them out.2
Throughout the series, setting fires
basically functions as a metaphor for doing evil things. The Baudelaires start
out with very firm notions of good and evil: some people are noble and some are
wicked and you have to figure out who sits in which box. But then things get a
bit more complicated than that, as is very neatly demonstrated by a courtroom
scene in the twelfth story. Count Olaf is on trial; the Baudelaires make their
accusations against the defendant. He hit Klaus across the face; he tried to
marry Violet; he poisoned Uncle Monty; he threw Aunt Josephine to the leeches;
he conspired with Esmé Squalor and Carmelita Spats; he kidnapped the Quagmire
triplets from Prufrock Prep; he murdered Jacques Snicket in the Village of Fowl
Devotees; he tried to cut off Violet’s head at the Heimlich Hospital; he threw
a brave and noble librarian to the lions. They identify him as the cause of
all their suffering. They recall that nobody has ever listened to them before
when they have tried to communicate who Count Olaf is and what he’s capable of.
They recall it, and, though their
testimony is well received, they begin to worry. What if, once again, their
word is not enough to get justice done? They decide to take a gamble; they call
Count Olaf himself to the stand to attest to his crimes. And he, well, he turns
the tables on them. He makes a series of accusations of his own, whose veracity
the Baudelaires are unable to deny. They held Esmé Squalor
hostage on Mount Fraught (because Count Olaf was holding Sunny hostage and they
wanted to get her back, but still). They helped Count Olaf burn down Caligari
Carnival (because they had to in order to get a ride to the Mortmain Mountains
where VFD Headquarters was, but still). Klaus caused a series of terrible
accidents at Lucky Smells Lumber Mill (because he was hypnotised, but still).
Violet stole some keys from a blind man to break into the library at Heimlich
Hospital (because that was the only way they would be able to check the records
for mentions of VFD, but still). Sunny broke her siblings out of jail (because
they were going to be burned at the stake for a murder they didn’t commit – so,
ahem, yeah, less grey area on that one, I’ll grant you). And then the pièce
de resistance of Count Olaf’s case: the Baudelaires technically killed a
man – because Count Olaf thrust a harpoon gun into their hands and it fired
when they dropped it in surprise, but still. Dewey Denouement is still dead.
The
point isn’t that the Baudelaires are actually on a par with Count Olaf in terms
of their criminal resume; the point is that they aren’t quite as innocent as
they thought they were. The point is that they’ve done more wicked things than
a noble person ought to. And indeed, at the end of The Penultimate Peril,
there’s a bit of a culmination of that, because they burn down the Hotel
Denouement – and this time it’s not on Count Olaf’s initiative, but their own.
They have truly become those who set fires rather than those who douse them.
They
burn down the hotel and they escape in a boat, with Count Olaf. Subsequently
shipwrecked, they wash up on an island whose community of castaways is provided
over by a man named Ishmael (“call me Ish”). Everyone on the island seems to be
very happy. They hang out in comfy robes keeping coloured sheep and drinking
coconut cordial, their motto is ‘forget your troubles’ and apparently, though
the right tidal conditions for leaving the island swing round on an annual
basis, nobody ever does. Plus, the islanders are the only people the
Baudelaires have ever met in all their misadventures, apart from themselves,
who are able to see through Count Olaf’s disguises. I’m sure there are lots of
ways in which that fact might be construed, but it strikes me as ascribing to
the islanders a kind of untaintedness by the conventions and expectations of
the world at large – a simplicity of heart, if you will. If we’re talking about
nature and culture, the islanders are about as far to the ‘nature’ end of the
proceedings as you can get, and it certainly seems to be doing them some
favours.
 |
| Coconut cordial. On which, keep reading... |
But
it seems to contain some disadvantages too. There’s nothing to eat on the
island except unmarinated ceviche – which is literally just bits of raw seafood
– and nothing to drink except the coconut cordial, which the Baudelaires find
suspicious on account of both its taste and the slightly mind-numbing effect it
seems to have on the islanders. Sunny suggests that the fish might be tastier
if cooked, but Ishmael counters that fire is the most dangerous thing in the
world, and the Baudelaires can hardly disagree with that. Later, Violet offers
to try to assemble a water filtration system from the various bits of flotsam
and jetsam that have washed up on the island (which is situated such that a
heck lot of flotsam and jetsam washes up there, hence all the castaways), so
that there would be water to drink and salt to season the food, but Ishmael,
again, argues against the proposal: what if the islanders couldn’t tolerate
fresh water after so many years on nothing but cordial, or what if they started
fighting about what to drink? The island is good because it’s safe, and it’s
Ishmael’s job to keep it that way. Violet replies apologetically that it was
just an idea. “Yes,” says Ishmael, “but ideas lead to more ideas, which lead to
arguments, which lead to schisms. You remember what got you stranded
here to begin with – don’t rock the boat.”
As
Ishmael’s comments betray, he knows rather more about the mysteries in which
the Baudelaires are embroiled than he’s letting on. In fact, he knows rather
more than they do. The Baudelaires find their way to the Other Side of
the island, where all the ‘dangerous’ stuff that washes up get sent – which is
to say, pretty much everything that washes up. There they find a house in a
tree, which has a water filtration system, and food cooked with fire, and books
– including a book with their mother’s handwriting in it. Ishmael shows up and
tells them that their parents once lived there. He knew their parents, because
he was the one who recruited them into VFD when they attended the school of
which he was principal (Prufrock Prep again). The organisation was his idea,
his project. “When a fire breaks out, the Official Fire Department is there to
fight it,” he explains. “But figurative fires need fighting too, and my
students were interested in so many things – literature, science, music,
theatre, animal behaviour, the culinary arts – and I thought, what if a group
of curious, capable young people came together to stand against the ignorance
and injustice of this world? We could make it a quieter, safer place. And for a
time we did, and then, well, it all went up in smoke.”
You
see the nature of Ishmael’s project: these things his recruits were interested
in, these were all culture things, all development things, technology
things. They wanted to learn and build and create and progress – just like
Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, who identify themselves respectively as an inventor,
a researcher, and a chef. Ishmael had hoped that VFD might make the world a
better place through such things, but the project failed, and he gave up on the
dream. He compares the troubles of the world to the tide: you can try to resist
them but they always come back. And hence the banning of any technological-cultural
development on the island, the logic being that if you can’t confront ignorance
and injustice with progress, then all you can do is try to stop it ever
emerging in the first place. And that’s how he proposes to keep the Baudelaire
orphans safe the way he couldn’t keep their parents safe.
But
then everyone on the island gets infected with a deadly fungus called the
Medusoid Mycelium, the only cure for which is horseradish or another culinary
substitute. The Baudelaires run back to the tree-house to see if they can find
any, and a scene ensues that really makes anyone who knows the book of Genesis
sit up and take notice. The Incredibly Deadly Viper – who we were introduced to
in the second instalment of the series, and whose name is a deliberate misnomer
(it’s actually harmless) – gives the Baudelaires an apple from the house-tree,
which has been specially hybridised to function as a cure for Medusoid Mycelium
poisoning. And just to hammer home the illusion further, in the book, Sunny’s
comment on the matter is “Gentreefive” – as in Genesis 3:5, “For God knows that
when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing
good and evil.”3 What’s going on here? What’s Mr. Snicket using the
Biblical story for? Well, as you’ll have guessed, that’s a question that I’m
going to have a stab at answering.
 |
| This one’s a rattlesnake, apparently, so probably actually is an Incredibly Deadly Viper. |
Let’s
start with the obvious: it’s some kind of inverted Fall. In Genesis, the fruit
brings death; in The End, it brings life. In Genesis, the serpent
deceives the woman, pretending to be her friend when he’s actually her enemy;
in The End, the serpent is likewise deceptive as far as its name is
concerned, but the opposite way round: it’s pretending to be deadly when it’s
actually harmless. And what about the moral effect – the you shall know good
and evil bit? Well, Adam and Eve were just totally ignorant of good and
evil before they ate the fruit. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, on the other hand,
knew good and evil already. They knew noble from wicked perfectly well. It was
for that reason that they found it so disturbing that they had ended up doing
so many wicked things in pursuit of noble ends – that they weren’t quite as
innocent as they’d thought they were.
But
compare the islanders. They don’t have any moral choices to make, because
Ishmael removes anything that might cause a disagreement such as might throw up
a moral choice from the side of the island where everybody lives. For these
guys, it’s just herding sheep, and ceviche for tea, and that’s what there is.
So arguably, the islanders don’t know good and evil. They just don’t have to.
And that was Ishmael’s whole idea, really, wasn’t it? He has, in a way,
engineered a kind of reverse Fall. And he wants the Baudelaires to forget their
troubles and join him in his little pseudo-Eden.
The
prospect isn’t without its appeal. A safe place to be, with no Count Olaf, is
exactly what the Baudelaires have been looking for all this time. But staying
on the island would mean giving up, just like Ishmael did. It would mean giving
up on inventing and researching and cooking – on any sort of
technological-cultural activity that might rock the boat. It would mean ceasing
to dream and learn and build things better, and instead settling down with some
ceviche and coconut cordial and accepting that this static existence is just
what there is. And it would mean giving up on the moral standards that the
orphans have been fighting so hard – and failing so increasingly – to hold
themselves to. I should mention here, Ishmael decides, early on in the story,
to leave Count Olaf in a cage on the sea wall to drown. If the Baudelaires really
want to forget their troubles and become part of the island community, they
have to be OK with that.
So
this is what their inverted Fall is: a reassertion of their determination to
know good and evil. They won’t settle for leading quieter and safer lives
without striving to make the world a quieter and safer place overall – even though
trouble is like the tide and can’t be held back. Even though inventing and
researching and cooking your way out of problems doesn’t actually stop the
onslaught of problems. Even though that onslaught inevitably leads to you
making at least some choices that seem more wicked than noble, and you realise
that you’re not as innocent as you thought you were, and you find yourself
setting fires instead of putting them out. At the end of The End, the
Baudelaires don’t stay on the island, as happy as they might feasibly have been
there. They get on a boat and they go back out into the world.
The
world is fallen. And human technological-cultural activity and progress is
going to cause as many problems as it solves. But I don’t think that
excuses us from trying to solve the problems. If you want to reverse that
development, if you want to take us back to the golden age before it all went
wrong, well, how far do you take it? Which inventions and innovations do you
allow or forbid? Hybridised medicinal apples? Water-filtration systems? Fire?
Every coin has two sides, benefit and danger. Humans are naturally creative; I
think that’s a little bit of what sets us apart from creatures that are merely
flesh. We naturally dream and learn and build things better than they
were before. We naturally seek to meet problems with new and creative solutions,
and, you know, that’s how technological-cultural development happens. Which
problems should we be forbidden to solve because it might cause a schism or
something somewhere down the line?
The
world is fallen. And one thing that that means is that our efforts to do good
are never going to be perfect; sin will dog our footsteps for as long as we’re
in the flesh. But another thing that that means is that we know good and evil,
which our first ancestors didn’t before they ate the fruit. And that means that
we can realise and recognise that sin is dogging our footsteps. That means we
can realise that we’re not as innocent as we thought we were; that we are not
by nature noble, that we are guilty of starting and feeding figurative fires.
And that means we can come to Jesus, who swapped his innocence for our
guilt and paid the price for it, for salvation. And once we’re born again of
water and the Spirit, even though sin is still with us, our efforts to do good count.
Just as God chooses to forget our sins, he chooses to remember the good we do.
Or else how could he promise reward for good works?
So
try. Even if it’s messy, and every solution or piece of progress seems
to throw up other problems, and you’re never going to get it perfect – all the
same, try. To humanity generally, I say let us dream and learn and build things
better than they were before. And to my brothers and sisters in the Lord, I say
let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do
not give up.4
Footnotes
1
Here it is if you fancy a watch: https://www.netflix.com/watch/80215880?trackId=200257859.
2
I wrote about this element of the story in ‘Verifiably False Doctrinists’,
under May 2018 in my blog archive.
3
You might want the chapter open: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen+3&version=ESVUK.
4
That’s from Galatians 6, if you weren’t sure: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gal+6&version=ESVUK.
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