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A Series of Unfortunate Events: Difference between revisions
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** Handler has way too much fun with this. At one point a location (a train station, if I remember correctly) is mentioned to have three shops - one is a computer repair shop. Another is a blacksmith shop. Have fun figuring out what time period those two establishments could coexist in.
* [[And Now You Must Marry Me]]: Olaf tries to force Violet to marry him in Book the First, despite being her legal guardian. The creepiness of this is actually played up, culminating in the [[Crosses the Line Twice|hilarious and horrifying]] line "You may not be my wife, but you are still my daughter, and--"
* [[Anti
* [[Anti-Villain]]: Arguably the Baudelaires themselves in later books, and among actual antagonists, Fernald seems to fall into this category at times.
* [[Anyone Can Die]]
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* [[Banned in China]]: Daniel Handler was actually hoping for some of this, and was disappointed in how little it happened. His one real "victory" was that the books were banned from a school in Georgia due to Olaf's plan to marry his distant relative Violet in book one, to which he responded "I'm at a loss as to how to write a villain who doesn't do villainous things."
* [[Bilingual Bonus]]: some of Sunny's comments, such as her arigato in the Slippery Slope, or her saying Aubergine to mean that she is making a plot with this eggplant. Others are a mishmash of English ("Kicbucit?" for "Is he dead?") and a couple are plain old Hebrew ("Yomhuledet!" which is translated as "Surprise" but literally means "birthday" and "Yomhashoah" which is translated as "Never again" but literally means "Holocaust Memorial Day"). The children also make pasta Puttanesca, an Italian dish translating as "whore's sauce."
* [[A Birthday, Not a Break|A Birthday, Not A Break]]: Klaus spends his thirteenth in a jail cell.
* [[A Boy, a Girl, And a Baby Family]]
* [[Beethoven Was an Alien Spy]]: The narrator and his comrades imply that V.F.D. dates back to [[Ancient Greece]], that Martin Luther King, Edith Wharton, and Thomas Malthus were involved with it -- although Malthus was on the evil side of the schism -- and that Shakespeare may be alive. However, these may be the result of revisionism in accordance with V.F.D.'s own views.
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* [[Contemptible Cover]]: Many non-English-language covers are awful and do the series no justice.
* [[Continuity Nod]]: Tons of these, especially in "An Unauthorized Biography". [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] and [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] in "The End"
* [[Convection, Schmonvection]]: {{spoiler|Well, technically "Radiation Schmadiation." In the [[Film of the Book]], Klaus uses Olaf's sunlight-refracting weapon to incinerate the wedding contract. The ''instant'' the sunlight hits the paper, it catches on fire. That means the thing was heated to about 400 degrees Farenheit just like ''that.'' Never mind the fact that Klaus [[Improbable Aiming Skills|perfectly lined up the device]] to hit such a small target, how come Olaf's hand didn't get singed? Or, you know, the stage didn't catch fire? There should at least have been ''smoke,'' considering how easily the paper went up.}}
* [[Conveyor Belt O' Doom]]: Occurs in Book the Fourth -- with an absurdly huge circular saw.
* [[Cool Car]]: The Tatra 603 and 1959 Chrysler Imperial in [[The Film of the Book]].
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* [[Daydream Believer]]: The combination of [[Literary Agent Hypothesis]] and [[Paranoia Fuel]] really makes an impact on some impressionable young readers.
* [[Day of the Week Name]]: Book the Thirteenth features Friday Caliban, and alludes to a Thursday Caliban and a Monday.
* [[Dead Guy, Junior]]: {{spoiler|Beatrice Baudelaire}}
* {{spoiler|[[Death By Childbirth]]: Subverted. Kit Snicket dies not as a result of childbirth, but because of the Medusoid Mycelium, the cure for which she refuses to consume because of its effects on unborn children.}}
* [[Deathbringer the Adorable]]: The Incredibly Deadly Viper, which is not poisonous and is actually really friendly.
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** The [[Adults Are Useless]] mentality of pretty much everyone the kids meet probably made most of them [[Too Dumb to Live]] when they refuse to believe the building they're in is on fire. YMMV on whether the (potentially lethal) negligence displayed by characters who were otherwise good people made this [[Laser-Guided Karma]].
* [[Hostage for McGuffin]]: A [[Subverted Trope]]: in Book the Tenth, where for once it's proposed by the heroes, neither they nor the villain are capable of carrying out their side of the bargain.
* [[How Do You Like Them Apples?]]: ''The End''.
* [[Hypocritical Humor]]: When Captain Sham (Count Olaf) says, "There ain't nothin' better than good grammar!"
* [[Idiosyncratic Episode Naming]]: Alliterated "The <adjective> <noun>", e.g., ''The Miserable Mill'', ''The Wide Window'', for nearly all the books.
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* [[Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate]]: [[Meaningful Name|Doctor Orwell.]]
* [[Mysterious Past]]: Nearly every character has a mysterious past, and none are ever fully revealed. For example, Emse reveals that Beatrice stole the sugar bowl, but Lemony later states that he was involved too. Just ''HOW'' he was involved, we do not know.
* [[Named After Somebody Famous]]: Tons and tons of characters. A few examples: the main characters are named [
* [[Necromantic]]: In Book the Eighth, Lemony wishes.
* [[Never Say Die]]: Notable for averting this trope, and hard.
* [[Never Trust a Trailer]]: An official website that revealed the only details about the highly secretive twelfth book made numerous updates implying an elevator-centric plotline which never actually materialised, going so far as to reveal a chapter picture which actually referred to a single inconsequential offhand sentence; Snicket's [["On the Next..."]] mislead by giving away random details as though they were equally important, and later obscure themselves to become even more incomprehensible; one promised a prop in the following book that never actually appeared.
* [[Nice Hat]]: The Council of Elders in the seventh book wear hats shaped like crows.
* [[Noodle Incident]]: It's implied that a lot of the backstory is too tragic to even mention, and Snicket himself alludes to downright absurd situations such as being trapped in a flooded Italian restaurant, which may or may not be hypothetical)
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* [[Obfuscating Stupidity]]: An [[Alternate Character Interpretation]] of movie!Olaf. He's portrayed as very goofy and melodramatic by Jim Carrey (surprise, surprise), but he's still able to come up cunning plans to steal the Baudelaire fortune.
* [[Odd Name Out]]:
** [
*** Violet was actually the name of Claus von Bulow's lawyer.
** [
** [
** While the names of the first 12 books are alliterative, the last book is simply called "The End."
* [[Oh, and X Dies]]: In ''The Reptile Room''
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* [[Onion Tears]]: [[Discussed Trope|Discussed]] in ''[[The End]]''.
* [[Only Sane Man]]: Frequently the Baudelaires are this, as are other well-read volunteers. During an interview, Liam Aiken (who played Klaus in ''[[The Movie of the Book]]'') himself described the siblings as "the only sane people."
* [["On the Next..."]]: Lemony's letters to his Kind Editor, which include the title of the next book and a few random details from it. As the series goes on, these letters become increasingly obscured, such as by tearing and water-stains, and so the information is increasingly elusive. In the case of the eleventh book, only half the title was known; the twelfth book's title was completely lost; the letter about the thirteenth book was just a single sentence written on a napkin -- with the title included, but nobody realized at the time as it deviated from the usual [[Idiosyncratic Episode Naming|title pattern]].
* [[Painting the Medium]]: In ''The Ersatz Elevator'', the three children are {{spoiler|thrown down an elevator shaft}}, and rather than try to describe it, Lemony just prints two pages solid black.
* [[Paper-Thin Disguise]]: Count Olaf, over and over again.
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* [[Reasonable Authority Figure]]: Uncle Monty was this (at least in the film).... for as long as he lasted.
* [[Recursive Canon]]: Apparently Snicket's books are published within the world of the Series, but it's not clear if they're different versions.
* [[Reference Overdosed]]: If you made a list of every time Snicket makes a [[Shout
* [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent]]: Averted very hard. The Baudelaires' herpetologist uncle {{spoiler|he's actually the brother of the wife of the cousin of the father of the baudelaires}} is kind and well-educated. He allows the children to fearlessly indulge their curiosity. The dangerous snakes are properly caged. And he only assigns the harmless and friendly but fearsome-looking Incredibly Deadly Viper that name as a joke and is even quite helpful to the Baudelaires.
* [[Retcon]]: So heavy that a number of companion books had to be written to fully explain them; these were themselves retconned. Handler originally thought the series would only last a few books, not the intended 13, and hence the first four books were essentially unconnected; V.F.D. was created as an ongoing plotline when it became clear the series could run 13 books, and details from the first four books were retconned to be part of the V.F.D. backstory to bring the entire series together.
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* [[Scrapbook Story]]: ''[[Lemony Snicket the Unauthorized Autobiography|The Unauthorized Autobiography]]'' and ''The Beatrice Letters''.
* [[Screw This, I'm Outta Here]]: {{spoiler|The white-faced women}} fall victim to this in Book the Tenth. Apparently, so do {{spoiler|Fernald and Fiona}} in Book the Twelfth (albeit off-screen).
* [[Self
* [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness]]: Often seen in books which Klaus has to read because only he can make sense of them.
* [[Shaming the Mob]]: Done by ''Olaf'' of all people to the audience of the play in the film.
* [[Shout
** Why will no-one call me Ish?
* [[Show Within a Show]]: The theme song from ''The Littlest Elf'' is heard on two characters' car stereos, and Olaf has a bobblehead of the character in his car, implying it's a film within the world of the story. This ties in perfectly with the conceit that Snicket's intended audience is also part of that world, when he recommends ditching out and seeing that movie instead.
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* [[Sub Story]]: ''The Grim Grotto''
* [[Synchronized Swarming]]: The swarm of "snow gnats"can take on forms like hoops and arrows when attacking people.
* [[Take That]]: Lemony Snicket takes some not-so-subtle jabs at various political figures via Sunny's "baby talk": There's "[[George W. Bush|bush]]eney" for "You're an evil man" in ''The Slippery Slope'' and "scalia" in ''The Penultimate Peril'', both of which have somewhat unkind translations).
** Then there's his association of poet ''Edgar Guest'' with the villains in ''The Grim Grotto'', even stating outright that it's because his poetry sucked in a [[Tastes Like Diabetes]] way. Kind of jarring in a series so focused on [[Black and Gray Morality]].
* [[Tastes Like Diabetes]]: Invoked with the first few minutes of [[The Film of the Book]], which is quickly and mercilessly subverted by a [[Record Needle Scratch]].
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* [[Two-Teacher School]]: Prufrock Prep has three teachers, a Vice Principal, and no other visible staff, excepting the lunch ladies who are Olaf's white-faced women who wear masks.
* [[Uncleanliness Is Next to Ungodliness]]: Olaf's poor hygiene and dirty house, played up even more in [[The Movie]]-- there are not only roaches and rats in the kitchen, but bats living in the cupboards.
* [[The Unintelligible]]: Sunny (whose speech is a mixture of [[Speaking Simlish|gibberish]], semi-relevant words and phrases (some of them [[Shout
* [[The Unpronounceable]]: Sir's real name -- which is why he makes people call him Sir.
* [[The Un-Reveal]]: When Sir is in a sauna, he puts down the cigar whose smoke usually covers his face, but he is covered up again by the steam.
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[[Category:Films of the 2000s]]
[[Category:A Series Of Unfortunate Events]]
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