A Series of Unfortunate Events
Hello, reader. It seems you have found this article whilst browsing half-heartedly through the Uncyclopedia bookshelf. However, this article is incredibly depressing; I myself sometimes cry like a baby at night, my face slowly vanishing from existence, because of the horrors of this article.
My name is Lemony Snicket, and I am the socially insecure author of an extremely melancholy series of books. I have also written this article, which happens to be about said books. I have promised to inform the public of this terrible tale, no matter how sad I may get, but if you are interested in articles with happy endings, you would certainly be better off reading some other article, for example one about innocent little kittens, or perhaps something about a 19th-century poet whose works are no doubt more uplifting than mine. That way, you would never have to know about A Series of Unfortunate Events, all of which are documented below.
The Perilous Plot Summary
This particular tale is one of misery and woe. Some people think it is over-the-top and dramatic, but those people don't understand what it's like to lose a loved one, or become an outlaw, or win a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award — you just want more and more, you smarmy bastards! Shame on you! Shame on you all for ever clicking on the link that took you to this depressing article in the first place! Um, anyway, its main characters are three sad children who must face burden after burden in order to finally settle down happily. They are constantly stalked by a wheezing, greedy, evil old man named Count Olaf, and are surrounded by adults who do not understand their problems.
The three aforementioned children are named Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire. You can read more about them in the characters section, although it will fill your heart with depressing-ness and suicidal feelings. The children live a happy life, period. Unfortunately, that period does not belong there, although I wish it did, and I have no choice but to continue, and do it without procrastinating like this. ...until one terrible day, they are informed by Mr. Poe, a banker, that their parents have been burned to death in a fire that has destroyed their home and all of their belongings, therefore making them orphans. The now-orphans are then placed into the custody of a so-called relative named Count Olaf. Unfortunately, Count Olaf is evil, and only cares about getting the implausibly large Baudelaire fortune that Violet will inherit when she turns eighteen. He tries to marry Violet during a production of a graphically-staged play, but Klaus figures out Olaf's evil scheme relatively quickly and the Baudelaires foil him somehow.
Due to the incompetence of Mr. Poe, the orphans cannot live with kind next-door neighbor Justice Strauss, who helped them foil Olaf's scheme, so Poe sends them to live with a number of relatives, each of whom are killed by Olaf over the course of the next six books. For reasons I do not want to know, Olaf frames the orphans for murder in The Vile Village, and they become fugitives. During books eight to ten, the Baudelaires... no, I don't want to tell you. Some things just don't deserve to be told.
Then, in the last three books, the three poor children become caught up in a secret government conspiracy named VFD — the very same that has dominated my life. Although it is never revealed what VFD actually is, it is hinted that VFD is dedicated to putting out fires and deleting shitty articles. I do not want to disclose whether this fact is true for the sake of VFD's article-deleting, fire fighting tendencies, although I shall tell you that over the course of forever, VFD split into two sides: the good people and the bad people, who start fires and create bad articles. The Baudelaires' involvement in this conspiracy becomes greater than you could imagine. Will anyone die? Yes.
The Barbaric Book List
Are you still reading? I was going to list the characters here but as you are still reading I shall list the thirteen books in the A Series of Unfortunate Events series. Do not read them, though.
- The Bad Beginning – The first of the books, The Bad Beginning is bad.
- The Reptile Room – The second book is even worse.
- The Wide Window – In order to highlight the dark themes of this book, I made someone commit suicide.
- The Miserable Mill – The Baudelaires discover the highs and lows of slave labor.
- The Austere Academy – The Baudelaires go to college.
- The Ersatz Elevator – This book includes the first appearance of Esmé Squarlor.
- The Vile Village – Thinking that they have finally found VFD, the Baudelaires go to a village of the same name, but their hearts are soon broken.
- The Hostile Hospital – The Baudelaires become doctors.
- The Carnivorous Carnival – The Baudelaires are hired by a circus, where they befriend some carnivorous carnies.
- The Slippery Slope – Klaus slips on a floor and has a close encounter with death.
- The Grim Grotto – The Baudelaires visit Santa's Grotto, only to find out that Count Olaf is Santa!
- The Penultimate Peril – This book marks the end of the series being just around the corner.
- The End – This sad story is merely the end of a larger sad story, which was continued throughout a series of twelve other sad stories, which are part of the aforementioned larger sad story.
The Carnivorous Characters
Protagonists
- Violet Baudelaire is, at 14 years old, the eldest of the three Baudelaire orphans. She is an inventor and a priestess. I respect Violet for being able to strive through the toughness of life without falling, unlike me. She can survive the barbaric wilderness of fate, battle the extreme incompetence of those around her, and is very very pretty...it's no wonder young boys who grew up with my series were so smitten with her.
- Klaus Baudelaire is the 12-year-old bookworm of the group. As Groucho Marx once said: "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." With the aid of his glasses, Klaus reads lots and lots of books, and would happily sit in his parents' library, absorbing hundreds of essential facts, and enjoy himself thoroughly, with not a thought about what barbaric things life has in store for him. Klaus comes across a library in every book, and will often sit down and have a relaxing read for a good two hours whilst his siblings are trapped in a life-threatening situation with virtually no means of escape.
- Sunny Baudelaire is the youngest Baudelaire, just a baby. Ah, infancy. I remember when I was a wee one, being kidnapped by the VFD and dropped face first onto a solid concrete road. Um, uh, anyway, Sunny bites many things, including cardboard, cans of weedkiller, and sticks of dynamite. In later books, she randomly develops an interest in cooking. Sunny often talks in a series of incomprehensible shrieks, e.g. "reebok", "gahh", and "how rude".
- The Quagmire Triplets (Isadora, Duncan, and Quigley) are three triplets who suffered similar misfortunes to the Baudelaires, although I must say, the triplets were more aware of what was happening. The Quagmires' parents died in a house that burned their house down, just like the Baudelaires. Quigley was thought to have died in the fire, but instead he escaped to pursue a life of male prostitution, then came crawling back in The Slippery Slope. All three Quagmires have commonplace books tucked into their pockets, which they use to write down useful information. In The Penultimate Peril, it turns out that the Quagmires are the product of a cloning operation held by the VFD, making them clones of the Baudelaires.
Antagonists
- Count Olaf is despicable. 'Nuff said. See also: arson, evil, murder.
- Esmé Squarlor used to be the Baudelaire's foster mother. Then she slept with the despicable Count Olaf and adopted Carmetilia Spats. Esmé joined Count Olaf in his scheme for world domination, and she even killed a crow. The bitch!
- Carmetilia Spats is a spoiled brat who is adopted by Count Olaf and Esmé Squarlor. Carmetilia is also evil and attempted to stab the orphans during their stay at boarding school in The Austere Academy. Count Olaf hates Carmetilia and manages to poison her in The Penultimate Peril.
- Count Olaf's theater troupe includes a hook-handed man, two white-faced women, a bald man with a huge nose, a fat transvestite, a wart-faced man, and a few carnies, all of them determined to be evil.
Other
- Beatrice is the orphans' mother, who was going to marry me but went for the orphans' dad instead. Oh Beatrice! How I miss your elegant face, the sweet texture of your graceful hand, your enigmatic personality, your luscious physique... there, I said it!
- Mr. Poe is an adult. In my books, there are three kinds of adult: the evil adult (e.g. Olaf), the rare friendly adult (e.g. Beatrice...oh, Beatrice), and the bumbling idiot adult (e.g. Mr. Poe). This is all a reflection of real life, or at least life the way I see it. Mr. Poe is an ignorant adult who does not listen to children and prioritizes work over them. REPENT! Plus, he ignores the Cough-Ease Man from the commercials! Cough-Ease really does work! Mr. Poe works at
Muchtury... Money... Thinga bank, and is responsible for his sister being locked in a basement and beaten to death by a crazy bitch named Geraldine. - I am Lemony Snicket. You can read about me here.
The Shocking Sales
After writing these books, I was shocked to find that they had sold over 60 million copies — even more books than hours I have spent crying. This means that 60 million children around the world have had to endure my research, and the terrible tale of the Baudelaires.
The Awful Awards
It seems that my work on the Baudelaires has won multiple awards. What kind of world do we live in, where the tragic recount of the miserable lives of three sad orphans is celebrated? My work shouldn't be awarded, it should be taken seriously, and people must realize that we need to place rich, snobbish orphans over such unimportant problems as poverty, crime, politics, and pollution. Sigh. In my inhuman condition, I do not feel for awards. But this article is not about me, this one is. So I must shut up, which just makes me more depressed, and ramble on.
The Miserable Movie
In 2004, Nickelodeon Movies decided to make a feature film based on the life of the Baudelaires. Unfortunately for everyone who wanted the Baudelaire case to be taken seriously, the film included comedy and a hinted happy ending, which takes out the serious element that real life happens to include. And even worse, Jim Carrey played Count Olaf. Do the Hollywood moguls have no respect at all for rich, lonely orphans?
The film, or "movie" as so-called 'hip' people refer to it, used mere actors to portray the siblings. Their performances were worse than that of the actors in an opera I very recently took an instant dislike to, and visual effects were incorporated for more complicated scenes. Well, the Baudelaires didn't use CGI and visual effects! Gahh!
You may want to note that I haven't actually seen the film yet, but assumptions are often right, unless you assume that assumptions are often right, in which case assumptions are not often right.
Supplementary Materials
There comes a time where everything, be it book, article or life, has to end. And, quite thankfully, this article's time has come. But before I do finish, and lift this overly dramatic burden from my chest, I must list some articles which may help you understand the complexity of this woeful tale. I would take caution in reading them, as they may well be as sad as this one.
- Lemony Snicket: An article about myself.
- Charlie Brown's A Series of Unfortunate Events: A similar series of books about Charlie Brown.
- VFD: The organization which I work for.
- Lemony Snicket: Me again.
- Tragedy, depression and suicide: A few words which definitely relate to this article.
- Fire: What the Baudelaire children, and I, have had to endure throughout our lives.
The End
Thank God for it. Sincerely,
