Baudelaire family

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The Baudelaire family (pronounced /ˌboʊdəˈlɛər/ BOE-də-LAIR) is one of several prominent fictional families created by American author Lemony Snicket for his novel series A Series of Unfortunate Events. The Baudelaire children, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, are the protagonists of the series.

Contents 1 Concept and creation 2 Family members 2.1 Bertrand Baudelaire 2.2 Beatrice Baudelaire 2.3 Violet Baudelaire 2.4 Klaus Baudelaire 2.5 Sunny Baudelaire 2.6 Beatrice Baudelaire (the Baudelaires' adoptive sister) 2.7 Extended family 3 Baudelaire mansion 4 Baudelaire fortune 5 The fire 6 Poison darts 7 See also 8 References

[edit] Concept and creation

In a 2010 video interview with The Independent, Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket) said:

It may interest people to know that my sister…was always very good with kind of mechanical devices, where I was kind of hopeless and more of a reader, kind of like Klaus. And then I always think Sunny reminds me of all babies, because really all babies do is speak unintelligibly and eat things.^[1]

Snicket named the Baudelaires after French macabre poet Charles Baudelaire.^[2] The French surname Baudelaire (pronounced /ˌboʊdəˈlɛər/ in English), historically also recorded as Badelaire and Bazelaire,^[3] refers to a short sword or knife used as a heraldic blazon: Thomas Nugent, in his Pocket-Dictionary of the French and English Languages (1808), translated baudelaire as a "short, broad, and curved sword" used in heraldry;^[4] the Reverend Thomas Dudley Fosbroke, in his Encyclopædia of Antiquities (1825), described the baudelaire as a "little portative knife" used as a medieval English blazon;^[5] W. T. Cosgrave described it as a "short and broad backsword, being towards the point like a Turkish scymitar".^[6] The French word baudelaire comes from Medieval Latin bādelārius, bādelāris, or bādārellus,^[3][7] meaning a "kind of short sword" (ensis brevis species).^[3]

Despite the apparently Romantic origin of "Baudelaire", Snicket stated in February 2007 that "the Baudelaires are Jewish! I guess we would not know for sure but we would strongly suspect it," citing their "manner" as an indicator.^[8] Snicket elaborated: "I think there is something naturally Jewish about unending misery. […] I'm Jewish so, by default, the characters I create are Jewish, I think."^[8]

[edit] Family members

[edit] Bertrand Baudelaire

Bertrand Baudelaire is a character in the novel series A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. He is the father of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire, the husband of Beatrice Baudelaire, and a member of V.F.D.. Throughout the series, the children remember anecdotes about their father, such as him cooking or at a dinner party.

As a child Bertrand was friends with Beatrice (his future wife).^[9] When Beatrice arrived early to her first day of V.F.D. training, Lemony Snicket complimented her for her punctuality, which embarrassed her because she was with Bertrand, the future Duchess of Winnipeg, and "others".^[9]

As a member of V.F.D., Bertrand is known to have helped in the training of the volunteer feline detectives (Mortmain Mountain lions).^[10] Bertrand was also good friends with Dewey Denouement, and Dewey mentioned that the two liked to recite an American humorist poem of the nineteenth century composed by John Godfrey Saxe together.

Count Olaf implicates Bertrand as a coconspirator in the murder of his own parents. At the outset of the series, Bertrand perished when the Baudelaire Mansion was destroyed in a fire.

[edit] Beatrice Baudelaire

[edit] Violet Baudelaire

Violet Baudelaire is the first child of Bertrand and Beatrice Baudelaire. She has exceptional inventing skills. One of her traits is that she ties up her hair in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes whenever she wants to invent some thing. She is fourteen at the beginning of the series and turns fifteen in The Grim Grotto.

[edit] Klaus Baudelaire

Klaus Baudelaire is Bertrand and Beatrice Baudelaire second child. He is an avid reader and a good researcher. He is identified by his prominent glasses. He is twelve at the beginning of the series and turns thirteen in The Vile Viilage.

[edit] Sunny Baudelaire

Sunny is the yougest of the Baudelaire siblings (before Beatrice Baudelaire was adopted). She is very fond of biting things and has unusually large teeth for her age. She develops interest and talent in cooking in the latter part of the series. She speaks unintelligibly most of the time and only her older siblings can understand her, though towards the end of the series her talk becomes easier to understand.

[edit] Beatrice Baudelaire (the Baudelaires' adoptive sister)

Beatrice Baudelaire is a fictional character in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. She is the daughter of Kit Snicket,^[11] who dies after giving birth, making Lemony Snicket's niece yet another orphan. Baby Beatrice is adopted by the Baudelaire orphans, hence the use of the surname Baudelaire. At age one, "she looks very much like her mother," according to Chapter Fourteen.

The younger Beatrice was named as per tradition, which was to name the baby after a deceased friend. This was why Violet Baudelaire was almost named Lemony- after her mother's thought-to-be deceased ex-fiancee. The final connection in hearing the baby utter her own name links together the clues that Lemony Snicket was always in love with the Baudelaire orphans' mother, who he dedicates every book to.

The last word of the last volume, The End, is "Beatrice," uttered by baby Beatrice herself.^[11]

In the Beatrice Letters, which is set ten years later than the main series, the second Beatrice Baudelaire is now a 10-year-old girl in search of her uncle, Lemony Snicket, and the Baudelaire orphans, who have apparently disappeared.^[12] The young girl writes Lemony Snicket a series of letters asking him to answer her questions about the Baudelaire orphans. "I must have at least twelve," she writes. (And there are twelve books before The End.)

Beatrice writes one letter on a typewriter in her uncle's empty small, dusty office, on the thirteenth floor of one of the nine dreariest buildings in the post-apocalyptic city. The office overlooks an empty lot where green sprouts are emerging from the remnants of a burned building. A map on the wall contains pinned up notes marking locations where Lemony Snicket might be found. Another of Beatrice's letters is written from a cave where Lemony Snicket has been hiding. She remarks that it is "a miserable place -- drafty, bat-infested, and decorated with hideous wallpaper."

Another letter is written sometime later in the year, while the second Beatrice is sitting in her business letter writing class in the secretarial school that isn't really a secretarial school. The implication is that Beatrice has found her way to the VFD training school that her mother and uncle also once attended. However, Lemony Snicket still does not want to see his niece and is actively running away from her.

In her fourth letter, Beatrice mentions that she has shadowed Lemony Snicket from the library, to the park, as he strolled along the edge of a nearby pond, and made a mad dash for the bus. By the time she caught a rickshaw, followed him back to his dreary office building and "managed to pick the lock on the front door," he had already made his way up several flights and she could hear him wheezing from the climb. She knocks on his office door but he refuses to answer her.

A fifth letter is written an undetermined amount of time later, after the second Beatrice has set up her own office on the fourteenth floor of the Rhetorical Building, Lemony Snicket's dreary office building. From this office she writes yet another letter to her elusive uncle. She drops it into a small metal tube, drills a hole through the floor, and drops the metal tube through the hole onto Lemony Snicket's desk in the office below. She begs him again to meet her and answer her questions and vows not to rest until she has found the Baudelaire orphans. "I owe my life to them," she writes.

The sixth letter is a notecard inscribed "Beatrice Baudelaire, Baticeer Extraordinaire." But Beatrice has apologized about "embarrassing him in front of his friends". This could mean that Beatrice the first wrote the letter. She sends the card in the care of a waiter to Lemony Snicket as he is drinking a root beer float. If he doesn't want to meet her, she writes, he needs only to rip up the card and she'll go away and never approach him again. The notecard in the book is intact, which implies that Lemony Snicket has finally met with his niece.

Lemony Snicket explains that, in referencing the older Beatrice, "Because I loved her so much ... it never occurred to me that there could be more than one Beatrice Baudelaire." He decides to join his niece's letters together with those written by and about the first Beatrice, in hope of making a coherent whole of the story. "Strange as it may seem," he writes to his editor in the final letter, "I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily."

The older Beatrice was the mother of the Baudelaire orphans who had once been engaged to Lemony Snicket, but, ended the engagement in a 200 page book and moved on to marry Bertrand Baudelaire. Lemony Snicket was always in love with her, and therefore made it his life's mission to record the history of her three orphaned children.

[edit] Extended family

Relationships are listed in relationship to the Baudelaire children, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny. Relationships formed by adopting Beatrice are not listed here, but would include all members of the extended Snicket family and all relatives of Dewey Denouement. For further possibilities, see Snicket family#Family tree.

• Count Olaf, either the Baudelaires' third cousin four times removed or (more plausibly) their fourth cousin three times removed.^[13] Therefore:
  • Count Olaf's father, either the Baudelaires' second cousin five times removed or their third cousin four times removed. It may be implied that he was murdered by Bertrand Baudelaire, Beatrice Baudelaire, and Lemony Snicket.
  • Count Olaf's mother, either the Baudelaires' second cousin five times removed or their third cousin four times removed. It may be implied that she was murdered by Bertrand Baudelaire, Beatrice Baudelaire, and Lemony Snicket.
• Monty Montgomery, the Baudelaire's first cousin-in-law once removed (or more specifically, Bertrand's cousin's wife's brother).^[14] Therefore:
  • Bertrand's unnamed cousin, the Baudelaires' first cousin once removed.
  • Montgomery's unnamed sister, the Baudelaires' first cousin-in-law once removed.
• Josephine Anwhistle, the Baudelaires' second cousin-in-law (or more specifically, second cousin's sister-in-law).^[15] This implies that Josephine has a sibling (and does not refer to Ike's sibling, Gregor). Therefore:
  • Isaac "Ike" Anwhistle, the Baudelaires' second cousin's sister's-in-law husband.
  • Gregor Anwhistle, the Baudelaires' second cousin's sister's-in-law brother-in-law.
  • unnamed second cousin
  • Josephine's unnamed sibling, the Baudelaires' second cousin-in-law.
  • Mrs. Anwhistle, the Baudelaires' second cousin's sister's-in-law mother-in-law (or more specifically, Ike and Gregor's mother). She is described as having only one eyebrow and one ear.^[16]
• Elwyn, the Baudelaires' uncle (whether he is maternal or paternal is not specified). He raised pigs.^[17]
• Mr. Fagin, the Baudelaires' nineteenth cousin (his name is presumably a reference to Mr. Fagin in Oliver Twist). He refused to become the Baudelaires' legal guardian for fear of Count Olaf.^[18]

[edit] Baudelaire mansion

The Baudelaire mansion, the former home of the Baudelaire family, was burned down in an apparent arson. The movie based on the series implies that this was carried out by Count Olaf using a massive refracting lens. The Baudelaire parents are said to have died in the blaze leaving Violet, Klaus, and Sunny orphaned.

The house is connected by a tunnel to 667 Dark Avenue, the home of Jerome Squalor and formerly Esmé Squalor. The purpose of this passageway was possibly to direct members of the secret organization V.F.D. to safe places before the schism. This passage is likely the reason Jerome Squalor was urged by Jacques Snicket to buy the penthouse of 667 Dark Avenue and to never ever sell it. For the same reason, Jacques Snicket urged Jerome Squalor not to marry Esmé.

In Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, in an excerpt from The History of Lucky Smells Lumbermill, written by Sir, and mentioned in The Miserable Mill as one of the few books in the Lucky Smells Lumbermill library, it is revealed that Lucky Smells Lumbermill supplied many buildings in its construction — including the Baudelaire, Snicket and Quagmire mansions — with its special "emerald lumber".

In the film, the Baudelaire Mansion is situated in 28 Prospero Place, Boston, Massachusetts.

[edit] Baudelaire fortune

Please help improve this article by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (April 2009)

The Baudelaire fortune is a large sum of money left behind by the Baudelaire children's parents after their death in the fire, which was to have been inherited by the Baudelaire orphans as soon as Violet turned 18. From the time that Count Olaf got custody of the orphans, he was constantly coming up with evil plans to get his hands on the fortune. Disguises from his V.F.D. days were always helpful and costume and makeup tricked Baudelaire's caretakers and Mr.Poe who was in charge of their large fortune. Always, he failed in his attempt to acquire it, as Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire used their wits (inventing, researching, cooking, and determination) to outsmart him. Therefore, Olaf never achieved his goal, as he died by getting struck by a harpoon gun in "The End".

[edit] The fire

The fire which killed Mr. and Mrs. Baudelaire was the starting point for the first book of the series, The Bad Beginning. While it has not been explicitly stated whether the fire was accidental or the result of arson, Snicket has several times hinted that someone else was at the Baudelaire mansion when the fire started. In letter correspondence between Mr. Snicket and the Vineyard of Fragrant Grapes (where the wedding between Lemony and Beatrice was supposed to take place) the Sebald code is applied in The Unauthorized Autobiography and says something like, "Hello, if you are still alive watch out" and then something roughly implying, "If you get married here, the count will burn you and Beatrice". The count is supposedly Count Olaf. This is a probable explanation as to who burned down the mansion, but has not been confirmed. In The Wide Window when Mr. Poe is listing the things Olaf is wanted for, he says, "The Lake Lachrymose Police Department will be happy to capture a known criminal wanted for fraud, murder, and the endangerment of children," and Count Olaf adds, "and arson." This implies that Count Olaf has been responsible for at least one fire. However, he cryptically implies that it wasn't him when, after the Baudelaires accuse him of murdering their parents, he asks "Is that what you think?". Sunny replies with "We know it."

Other characters, such as Duncan, Isadora and Quigley Quagmire have lost parents in similar fires, and members of V.F.D. are logical suspects.

In the movie version of the first three books, during the time when Olaf is forcing Violet to marry him, Klaus finds a giant magnifying glass which focuses the light. He finds that it is a clear shot to the house, heavily implying that Olaf used this glass as a method of arson.

Quigley implied that he was the survivor of a fire and not Mr. or Mrs. Baudelaire. Lemony Snicket has said, at different times, that Beatrice and Bertrand are both dead.

It is possible that the fire mentioned in the hospital records was actually the Quagmire fire, and that the survivor referred to was, in fact, Quigley.

In The Carnivorous Carnival, when the Hook-Handed Man says that one of the parents is alive, Lemony Snicket says that the statement is not true. However, this could be taken several ways: i.e. it could be that they are both dead, or that they are both alive. But Lemony Snicket also indicates that Beatrice Baudelaire had died, especially in his dedications in the beginnings in each book.

[edit] Poison darts

The Penultimate Peril also opens up more possibilities about the Baudelaire parents' past. Kit Snicket tells the children about a night that she attended an opera (La forza del destino) with their parents and handed them a box of poison darts before being seen by Esmé Squalor. Later in the book Count Olaf reveals that his parents were killed by poison darts and that he has good reason to hate the Baudelaires (obviously implying that the Baudelaire parents were the ones who murdered his parents). This would explain Olaf's grudge against the family, his motive for burning down the Baudelaire mansion (as many believe he did), and possibly also why he became a villain in the first place. None of this is ever confirmed in the book, however.

One of the 13 Shocking Secrets You'll Wish You Never Knew About Lemony Snicket states that Lemony helped Beatrice to commit a serious crime before her death, which can possibly be the murder of Olaf's parents. Another reveals that Snicket is wanted for arson. However, in Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, he mentions that he knows of other people starting fires, although he himself did not. There is a possibility that he is only reported to committed arson, and actually was framed.

In The End, Count Olaf, a known arsonist, refuses to confirm or deny the charge that he was responsible for the death of the Baudelaire parents and tells the Baudelaires that they don't know anything.

[edit] See also

• Violet Baudelaire
• Klaus Baudelaire
• Sunny Baudelaire
• Beatrice Baudelaire
• Snicket family
• Quagmire family

[edit] References

v • d • e Lemony Snicket   A Series of Unfortunate Events Novels The Bad Beginning · The Reptile Room · The Wide Window · The Miserable Mill · The Austere Academy · The Ersatz Elevator · The Vile Village · The Hostile Hospital · The Carnivorous Carnival · The Slippery Slope · The Grim Grotto · The Penultimate Peril · The End Characters Violet Baudelaire · Klaus Baudelaire · Sunny Baudelaire · Count Olaf · Lemony Snicket · Arthur Poe · Esmé Squalor · Beatrice · Hook-handed man · Bald man with the long nose · White-faced women · One who looks like neither a man nor a woman · Count Olaf's theater troupe · V.F.D. members · Baudelaire family · Snicket family · Quagmire family · Other characters Elements Locations · Flora · Fauna · V.F.D. · Great Unknown · Sugar bowl · Snicket file · Medusoid Mycelium Media Feature film · Soundtrack · Video game · The Tragic Treasury · The Dismal Dinner · Other media   Untitled series   Other works Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography · The Beatrice Letters · The Baby in the Manger · The Composer Is Dead · Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid · The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming · The Lump of Coal · More works Portal · Category · Project · Book