Holes/Headscratchers

In the book/movie Holes, the main character's name is Stanley Yelnats, and his last name is supposedly from his Latvian side of the family. But, the Latvian alphabet has no "Y"s. They use "J"s instead. So the whole first name is his last name backwards thing wouldn't really work if it's actually Latvian. (From a troper with Latvian heritage and a sister named Livija {Liv-ee-yuh.})
- A lot of immigrants' names got mangled when they entered the states. A "J" getting changed to a "Y" would be no big deal.
  - Stanle Jelnats could get mangled to Stanley Yelnats pretty easily, and still remain palindromic.
  - And besides, the first Stanley Yelnats was born in the US wasn't he? The Yelnat ancestor who immigrated wasn't named Stanley (Elya I think his name was. I'm not quite sure, it was something like that.).
  - Yep, that's right: Stanley Yelnats was born in the USA and was named by his mother (Sarah Miller, an American) who noticed and liked the palindrome thing. Presumably, Elya Yelnats (Stanley Yelnats IV's great-great-grandfather) Anglicised the spelling of his name upon immigrating, changing the J's to Y's.
Consider. The curse of bad luck states that it would be cured by having Madame Zeroni carried up the mountain (in LATVIA, or the original country of origin for Stanley's family) so that she could drink from the water while being sung to. I was under the impression that the spring was somehow magical, but that could just be something I imagined of my own accord. In any case, the curse is cured when Stanley carries Zero up the mountain, lets him drink from the spring, and sings the song to him, right? Only that took place in AMERICA, nowhere near where Madame Zeroni lived. So, is it that the actual location doesn't matter as much as the symbolism itself?
- Yes, it was just symbolism. The only reason Elya Yelnats and the pig were getting bigger and stronger was that the pig was getting feed and presumably unsoiled water, and Elya was carrying a pig up and down a mountain once a day of size increasing slowly enough not to notice. My guess was that Madame Zeroni was guessing the girl was shallow enough and her father opportunistic enough to go for the guy with the big muscles whether his pig was bigger or not, and got PO'd that he left without paying before putting what may have been an actual curse on him.
  - It could also have been what the trip to the spring symbolized. According to Madame Zeroni, drinking from the spring would make her stronger (possibly the water was more pure or healthier at that spring) and it was implied that she would die soon. Thus, by forgetting his promise, Elya inadvertently shortened her life. When Stanley had Zero drink from the spring, he carried him up there and gave him water to save Zero from dying. In other words, he was giving him the chance to live longer that Madame Zeroni had been denied. So because Stanley had done that, the curse was lifted (or a shorter answer could be that the curse decided to not be picky since Stanley was saving the descendant of the caster).
  - Besides, Madame Zeroni said that the spring on the mountain had water that ran uphill. On God's Thumb, Stanley and Zero (once they're better) wonder about the nature of the spring, and think that the thumb is a natural water reservoir because that's the only explanation, considering "water doesn't run uphill." If we presume that the water at this spring did run uphill, Stanley and Zero just never noticed it, then that means the two springs both had water that had the same magical properties. So, it works.
  - The book states that the water on God's thumb runs uphill.
Am I the only one who felt like it implied that that one guy Stanley was replacing, Barf Bag or whatever had committed suicide? Or maybe I'm just a morbid kid, since I was about eight years old when I read it and assumed that.
- The implication was indeed that Barf Bag intentionally got himself bitten by a rattlesnake. The film goes so far as to show him in the opening scene, spotting the snake and then taking his shoes off, walking over to it, and holding out his foot for it to bite him. However, both the book and the film mention that Barf Bag lived, and Mr. Sir says that most of the time you can survive a rattlesnake bite. Barf Bag knew this, and was trying to get sent to the hospital in order to escape Camp Greenlake, rather than trying to commit suicide.
Would Stanley actually be convicted in Real Life? How strong is the case against him, I mean, didn't he have an alibi?
- He did, as the patent lawyer discovered towards the end, but it seems that early on he wasn't clear enough on the details of when the shoes were stolen to figure out what he was doing at the time.
- It's rare that completely innocent people are convicted of those kind of crimes but a lot of times getting the right lawyer is all the difference in the world. The Yelnats couldn't afford a decent lawyer at the time.
- Also keep in mind Stanley's family curse. A lot of his conviction was possibly the bad luck from that.
  - Heck, when asked whose fault it is that he's at Green Lake, Stanley replies, "My no-good dirty-rotten pig-stealing great-great-grandfather." Stanley, at least, attributes it to the curse.
- Actually, according to the book, Stanley didn't have a lawyer at all, which a pretty hair-pulling case of Fridge Logic and Hollywood Law, since it's constitutionally mandated that a defendant must be appointed a lawyer if they can't afford one. Dammit, Sachar...
  - Your mortal laws have no meaning to Madame Zeroni's curse. Seems like a bit of a stretch, but it's really the only logical explanation.
In the "Guide to Surviving Camp Green Lake", Stanley says that once you get your nickname it means you've been accepted by the community. Twitch, Zero's replacement, seems to get his nickname the day he arrives to camp, and yet the next day everyone hates him because he's just so annoying. So if they hate him, why did he get nicknamed so fast?
- Everyone gets their nicknames as soon as they arrive. Persumably, a nickname means you have been recognized by the others as being in group D, not a mark of friendship and popularity.
- Acceptance doesn't mean that everyone stops thinking something is seriously wrong with you. Remember Armpit and Zero? Armpit fit in relatively well, though everyone thought he really needed to shower more. Zero seemed to be a bit of an outcast, despite having a nickname. I guess acceptance in this case means you are a part of the community, though it might take a while longer to be considered a real member of the tent 'family' (in this case 'D' tent).