#ellington feint

[albertvictoria-art]

Various Fashionable Designs inspired by the characters of Lemony Snicket's "All The Wrong Questions" book series: Lemony Snicket himself, S. Theodora Markson, Moxie Mallahan and Ellington Feint

#atwq #lemony snicket #all the wrong questions #vfd #illustration #character design #moxie mallahan #ellington feint #s theodora markson #fan art #victorian #vintage style #albert victoria

[ven10]

#asoue #a series of unfortunate events #asoue poll #quigley quagmire #polls #montgomery montgomery #carmelita spats #fernald widdershins #quagmire triplets #isadora quagmire #sunny baudelaire #beatrice snicket #qwerty #count olaf #lemony snicket #ellington feint #soue #I actually like the name Isadora but it’s unusual especially for a 13 year old so in the poll it goes #also Quigley is a really cool name #but the lengthened version ‘Quigleforth’ is absolutely horrendous #poor guy #well-rich guy but y’know what I mean #my polls #a series of unfortunate events poll #poll #my poll #Beatrice the second #not a name for a baby #or a child #maybe an elderly person

[themagicalmolly]

INTO THE SNICKETVERSE | A Series Of Unfortunate Events DEEP dive!

Come along with Magical Molly for an excessive and OBSESSIVE exploration into all things Lemony Snicket!

#asoue #a series of unfortunate events #lemony snicket #all the wrong questions #snicketverse #count olaf #violet baudelaire #klaus baudelaire #sunny baudelaire #kit snicket #beatrice baudelaire #ellington feint #moxie mallahan

[eyesteeth]

Time for another ATWQ theory. This theory contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the entirety of the fourth volume, so tread with caution. Content warnings for semi-graphic discussions of violence. Long post. I cannot stress how long this post is.

I think Ellington killed Qwerty.

Qwerty’s death is perplexing. His neck wound has thrown me off for years. It’s deep and it’s prominent enough to produce a “terrible stain“. And yet, we’re told the weapon that did him in was a poison dart, shot by Stew Mitchum. I don’t believe this. I believe Qwerty was as good as dead before Stew even had the chance to shoot.

The order of events

Let's break the scene down.

More murmuring, more rattling. “… a good evaluation,” Theodora finished, in the same voice she’d used to make me go to bed early. “You haven’t earned a good evaluation,” Qwerty said sharply. “I’ll tell you what I’ve earned,” Theodora said, and then she said something else I couldn’t hear, in the quiet tone. Qwerty heard it, though. The librarian now sounded less steady and precise and more frightened and anxious, or perhaps I was hearing my own fright and anxiety. “What are you doing?” he cried, and then there was a loud, shattering noise that sounded so close I thought the bottle had broken against my ear. Qwerty screamed, a wild, loud sound he never would have allowed in his library, and then I don’t know exactly what happened next because I dropped the bottle. “What is it?” Moxie asked me. “What’s going on?” “Let’s find out,” I said, moving to the door. “I can’t,” Moxie said. “I need to lie low, remember?” I remembered and said so, then hurried out of the compartment and found myself in a narrow corridor, clattering with the noise of the train and full of nobody but me. (ATWQ4, Chapter 4)

So, in order:

Qwerty exclaims "What are you doing?"

The window breaks

Qwerty screams

Lemony drops the bottle

Lemony enters the room several seconds later

This is very interesting to me, especially because Qwerty asks his question before the window breaks. I'd imagine that the window would break first, then he'd ask the question, and then he'd scream.

Qwerty's exclamation

“What are you doing” is an odd thing to say when a child comes in through your window. To me, it would make far more sense to say something like “What is he doing here” or simply “What the hell”. “What are you doing” is a phrase that seems directed at someone in the room, someone who Qwerty could see and could hear him. Taking context into account, this sounds directed at Theodora - she tells him something in a low voice, he reacts with fear, he is found dead. But I believe this to be a red herring. Because, as we find out later, there was someone else in the room - Ellington.

That's not how poison darts work

“I saw S. Theodora Markson shoot Dashiell Qwerty with a poison dart.” “You did no such thing,” I said. (ATWQ Chapter 6)

“Hangfire lurks in the background,” I reminded her, “imitating people’s voices and making mysterious phone calls. He doesn’t do anything himself.” Ellington poured the coffee. “Well, this time he did,” she said. “He shot Qwerty with a poison dart and threw the weapon out the window. Then he slipped into a nearby compartment and frightened the librarians into serving as false witnesses.” (ATWQ Chapter 8)

“I’m sure it was heartbreaking,” I said, “for the law to do something so lawless. But they were protecting someone important to them—their darling little boy. It was Stew Mitchum who clung to the railings of The Thistle of the Valley, shot Dashiell Qwerty with a poison dart, and then escaped into a compartment full of librarians scared into hiding the truth.” (ATWQ Chapter 11)

Over and over, when it comes to the murder, everyone agrees that it was a poison dart.

We all love our poison darts. A major reveal in TPP, and now they’ve come back again, like history rhyming. But a poison dart should not leave a neck wound like that. In the Netflix adaptation of TPP, there’s a small prick, and then Olaf’s father falls over. There is no blood involved.

Poison darts also have a very small tip. Even if Stew had missed his shot and the dart had run across Qwerty’s throat instead of hitting the side, I don’t think the wound would have been deep enough to kill. It would have bled if the angle was right, but what Qwerty’s death is described as sounds much more like a throat slash than a dart shot. 

Imagine a throwing dart. Imagine throwing that dart to a dartboard. Now imagine how precisely someone would have to stand between you and the dartboard in order to have it run the length of their throat but not get stuck in the side. Now imagine trying to do that in a moving train car, with you on the outside of the train. Not only is it a highly improbable (if not outwardly impossible) shot, even a poison dart shot from a dart gun would not be able to go that deep.

Your honor, that was not the murder weapon.

Even if it was I don't think Stew couldve made that shot anyway

I read for quite some time before I was distracted by a noise that sounded like a rock being thrown against the wall, just above my head. I looked up in time to see a small object fall to the table. It was a rock, which had been thrown against the wall, just above my head. It would be nice to think of something clever to say when something like that happens, but I always ended up saying the same thing. “Hey,” I said. “Hey,” repeated a mocking voice, and a boy about my age stuck his head out from behind a shelf. He looked like the child of a man and a log, with a big, thick neck and hair that looked like a bowl turned upside down. He had a slingshot tucked into his pocket and a nasty look tucked into his eyes. “You almost hit me,” I said. “I’m trying to get better,” he said, stepping closer. He wanted to tower over me, but he wasn’t tall enough. “I can’t be expected to hit my target every time.” (ATWQ1, Chapter 4)

While Stew may be morally capable of shooting a man (we see him go from firing rocks at birds to physically beating Lemony in the span of a few months), he may not be physically capable. Standing still, Stew Mitchum failed to shoot Lemony with a slingshot. And given that Stew was supposedly climbing on the outside of a moving train before swinging in through a window and taking the shot, I call bullshit. This would require an insane amount of coordination and skill, which Stew does not have.

Putting it all together

So, if it wasn't Stew, then it was either Ellington or S. I already believe S didn't do it. She wanted something from Qwerty, and killing him was only going to make her evaluation worse. She wasn't above threatening him, but I believe she was above killing him.

“Ellington Feint and Dashiell Qwerty shared Cell One,” Moxie said, typing it as she realized it, and then she stopped and looked at me. “She must have killed him.” I thought of Ellington dangling out the window of the train, and shook my head. “I know how you feel about Feint,” Cleo said to me. “We all do, Snicket. But if Theodora is not the murderer, then Ellington Feint must be. There was no one else in the compartment.” (ATWQ4 Chapter 11)

So it comes back to this. If it wasn't Stew from outdoors, and it wasn't Theodora from inside, it has to have been Ellington. And I believe I have the motive.

I sat up in bed and quickly turned the light on. I knelt beside the old-fashioned phonograph and looked carefully at it. It could be anybody’s, I told myself. It looks like Ellington Feint’s, but that doesn’t mean it is. I picked it up and turned it over and then saw a word, just one word stamped into the machine, right where the arm with the needle lay waiting to make the music play. It was the wrong word. It made me take three steps back. (ATWQ3, Chapter 5)

“I believe Hangfire would kill Ellington Feint if he could,” I said with a shiver, “and Ellington knows it.” (ATWQ4, Chapter 11)

Ellington likely knows Hangfire is her father, she just doesn't want to admit it to herself. She uses the phonograph far more than Lemony does, and if he knows, so does she. And if she also knows that he could kill her without much hesitation, then that gives her reason to get into his good graces.

And then there’s the one, I thought, who has stolen more sleep from you than all the rest. Ellington Feint, like me, was somewhat new in town, having come to rescue her father from Hangfire’s clutches. She’d told me that she would do “anything and everything” to rescue him, and “anything and everything” turned out to be a phrase which meant “a number of terrible crimes.” (ATWQ4, Chapter 1)

Who's to say she didn't work her way up to murder?

A hypothetical scene

So, Ellington and Qwerty are in the same cell. Kit is in the other cell. S is talking to Qwerty. The Mitchums are present. Here's what I think could have happened.

While Qwerty and S are talking, Ellington comes at him. He yells "What are you doing?", a statement directed at the person sitting next to him, and not someone coming through the window. Stew comes in, ready to attack, but this serves more as distraction than anything. Ellington, with a weapon actually meant to cut a throat, gets at Qwerty and he screams. Outside, Lemony drops the bottle, avoiding the sound of Qwerty's death gurgles.

Then, Ellington's deal with the Mitchums becomes silence about Stew's involvement as opposed to Stew murdering someone. She leaves, and likely discards the weapon out the window like everyone assumed Stew did with the darts. Stew does his threatening and Ellington slinks off, leaving Theodora, the Mitchums, and Kit in the room. Theodora is too stunned to speak, possibly rethinking her choices up to this point, the Mitchums are kept silent by their son, and Kit does not have anything to say.

Events on the train carry out as they do, the second conspiracy unfolds, Hangfire is revealed and then subsequently killed, and then eventually Kit and Ellington wind up in the same cell, shaking hands, two orphans who have been taught to kill.

How it works thematically

ASOUE and ATWQ both convey unreliable narration in different ways. ASOUE is a man reconstructing events he was not present for, and ATWQ is a man looking back on one of the most traumatic events of his childhood. He’s bound to get things wrong in both, and I believe that he is wrong about this scene because he’s falling into the biases he had when he was young.

It would be easy for him to assume that Stew killed Qwerty. It's easy for the audience to assume it, too. We know Stew's history of violence and his hatred towards Qwerty. It makes sense if you don't look too deep into it. The whole event was incredibly stressful, and Lemony was still so very young. Even if he had come to a different conclusion, he may not have wanted to consider it. It’s possible that these inconsistencies are the result of him wanting to tell the facts of what happened while also not wanting to acknowledge that Ellington killed Qwerty.

Or maybe I’m just overthinking things :]

#eyeteeth speaks #atwq #dashiell qwerty #ellington feint #long post #finally made this tinfoil hat post after literally eight months

[unfortunatetheorist]

Did Lemony write 'That's Not How The Story Goes' (Netflix canon)?

***N.B. This theory is based on the Netflix canon***

We first hear the sombre melody of That's Not How The Story Goes at the end of The Miserable Mill: Part Two. Everyone from Lemony to Olaf to the (creepily cheery) Mr Poe joins in as a part of this song, before at the very end of the song/episode, we see that the song came from Mr Poe's radio, when he says "Mm, that's nice."

My theory is that Lemony wrote this song as a part of his depressed chronicling of the tragic story Baudelaire orphans:

We know right from the start that the song is about the Baudelaires, as Lemony['s verse] starts,

"You may think that the Baudelaires ought to prevail, and be tucked someplace all safe and sound"

Given that:

"My name is Lemony Snicket and it is my solemn duty to investigate the lives of the Baudelaire orphans, because if I do, [typewriter dings] I may be able to find them again." ¬ L.S., The Penultimate Peril, Part Two

it makes sense that he opens the song referring to the three protagonists.

However, the reason I think it's Lemony, and not anyone else, is because of the verse:

"I once loved a girl, and she thought well of me, we thought we'd be happy together;

But now I'm alone, as you can well see, and she's cold in her grave forever"

There are a few people Lemony could be referring to here:

His Beloved Beatrice Baudelaire

Kit Snicket

Duchess R of Winnipeg

Ellington Feint

Moxie Mallahan

Firstly, we can more-than-safely assume that Lemony is NOT referring to Ellington or Moxie. His relationship with both of them has never reached that extent, to the point where he loved them so much he considered a future with them...

His Beloved Beatrice Baudelaire

Kit Snicket

Duchess R of Winnipeg

Ellington Feint

Moxie Mallahan

He could be referring to Kit... but why would he start a future with his sister? Ugh.

His Beloved Beatrice Baudelaire

Kit Snicket

Duchess R of Winnipeg

Ellington Feint

Moxie Mallahan

Yes, Lemony did have quite a close relationship with Duchess R... but if Duchess R is the swimming woman from The Grim Grotto (@snicketsleuth amazing theory), it can't be her, as R is not dead by the time Lemony writes the verse in the song. Beatrice is the only dead one (assuming, of course, that Ellington and Moxie are alive).

His Beloved Beatrice Baudelaire

Kit Snicket

Duchess R of Winnipeg

Ellington Feint

Moxie Mallahan

But... if Lemony wrote and published A Series of Unfortunate Events in-universe, why would he need to write a song as well?

This has a very simple answer - ASOUE was banned from Prufrock Prep at the time Kit was teaching, so the only way Lemony could get his point across was by song.

Under a pseudonym of course - no enemy of his should know he's alive.

¬ Th3r3534rch1ngr4ph, Unfortunate Theorist/Snicketologist

#a series of unfortunate events #asoue netflix #asoue #kit snicket #beatrice baudelaire #ellington feint #moxie mallahan #duchess r #duchess of winnipeg #theory #fan theory #speculation #snicketverse #lemony snicket #that's not how the story goes

[library-child]

To me, this is a compelling, brilliant scene. It's the turning point for both Lemony's character arc and the story.

Here, Lemony realizes that Hangfire is most certainly Armstrong Feint in disguise. This confronts him and us readers that the story is bound to end in tragedy. Until now, there was the possibility of a happy ending if the good guys only managed to defeat the bad guys. But Lemony was set up for failure from the beginning. No matter what he does next, there won't be a happy ending. The best thing he still can hope to achieve is to save the town and its children from Hangfire, but there will be no way to spare Ellington her suffering.

On a storytelling level, this marks the passing from a children's mystery series to a full-on, unapologetic tragedy. On a character level, this might be a key moment to understand Lemony and his entire generation of volunteer children, such as Kit, Dewey, Olaf, Beatrice, etc.

These children were kidnapped by VFD at a very young age. Many of them were also orphaned. They were isolated from people they knew and trained rigorously since day one. They had it drilled into them that their basic needs and emotions didn't matter and that they only existed to serve the greater good. In return, they got a notion of nobility: They were an aristocracy because their skills and sacrifices made them morally and intellectually superior to regular people. Being stripped of everything they had, these kids clung to those dreams of greatness.

But as they got older, they realized that their elders at VFD didn't live up to their own promises. They were incompetent, callous, and caught up in internal conflicts. So at the beginning of ATWQ, Lemony and his friends seemed to have come up with another notion to fix their emotional crisis. VFD may not be as great as it should be, but they would make it so. They would be overcome the older generation and save the organization and the world from evil. They were going to be heroes. Everything they had gone through would be worthwhile.

But here, Lemony is confronted with the horrible truth that destroys the coping mechanism he's relied on for so long. So now he has to choose to either accept that and be honest about his suspicion or go into complete denial. He chooses the latter. Up until the very last moment, he clings to the illusion that Armstrong may be innocent after all, that he may still save the day. He tries to solve the problem by killing Hangfire, thus going against the very principles that he's been preaching. At the end of ATWQ, he's just traumatized, running away mindlessly and living on the streets.

I think the other volunteers from his generation have to face similar disillusionments. As the schism worsens, some leave or turn against VFD, such as Olivia and Ernest. Others fight teeth and claws to recreate this quiet world utopia they have been raised to believe in. They resort to increasingly violent tactics that only worsen things, like the Volatile Fungus Deportation, the burning of Anwhistle Aquatics, or the murder at the opera. And so they die before their time, by each others' hands or their own poor decisions. They end up as just another failed generation that leaves their children a pile of debris and unanswered question, but also the hope to do better.

#lemony snicket #all the wrong questions #atwq #a series of unfortunate events #series of unfortunate events #asoue #vfd #kit snicket #beatrice baudelaire #count olaf #ernest denouement #olivia caliban #hangfire #armstrong feint #ellington feint #dewey denouement #the unauthorized autobiography #tragedy

[bitter-lemon-tree]

oh hey i didn’t doodle my art lazily on paper for once

#ellington feint #atwq #my art

[panic-at-the-general-vicinity]

Me @ each and every one of the children in ASOUE/ATWQ: These poor kids. Sure they’ve messed up, but they’re children! With no stable parental/guardian figures! We can’t hold these actions against their character because they’re CHILDREN!

Me @ Stuart “Stew” Mitchum and everything he stands for: Horrible. Disgusting. Terrible man. Perish in a fire.

#all the wrong questions #lemony snicket #moxie mallahan #pip and squeak bellarophon #jake hix #Cleo knight #stew mitchum my beloathed #ellington feint

[miriel-therindes]

I'm part of an invincible army, but not a victorious one. It means our plans always get shattered, no matter how brilliant they are. But our purpose remains intact. We may ask the wrong questions, but we know the right answers. We might not always have an actual compass, but we have a moral compass, something inside ourselves that tells us the proper thing to do.

#atwq #all the wrong questions #atwqedit #fandomaesnet #lemony snicket #moxie mallahan #pip bellerophon #squeak bellerophon #jake hix #cleo knight #kellar haines #ornette lost #ellington feint #snicketverse #mine #aesthetic #snicketverseedit #asoue edit

[volunteerfelinedetectives]

#asoue #lemony snicket #a series of unfortunate events #atwq #all the wrong questions #ellington feint #kit snicket #jacques snicket #beatrice baudelaire #VFD

[beatricebidelaire]

kit snicket and ellington feint on the subject of "restorative"

#kit snicket #ellington feint #kitlingtop #otp: gal pals behind the bar #who could that be at this hour #lemony snicket #vera.txt

[cygninae]

i would let ellington feint ruin my life

#ellington feint #atwq #snicketverse

[lionmythflower]

Um so yall know that audio that's like "yea, u ever just watch something and think, 'omg everyone in this is gay' that's how I felt watching this movie" that was me reading all the wrong questions.

Lemony is definitely pansexual

Same w Ellingtondef a pansexual

And moxie gives such nonbianary vibes its not even funny

kellar is gay 100%

The Mitchums were the exception

Jake is definitely bisexual

And cleo feels omniromantic n asexual

Pip and squeak..... gay-

Sharon Haines n Theodora Markson , lesbians

#Ya so anyway #all the wrong questions #lemony snicket #bellerophon brothers #Pip and squeak #moxie mallahan #Kellar Haines #Sharon Haines #Theodora markson #ellington feint #Jake hix #Stew mitchum #Cleo knight #pansexual #bisexual #No binary #Gay #everyone is gay #lesbian #asexual #At least half of them are trans too #omnisexual #atwq

[somewhat-bored]

After the events of atwq, Ellington vowed to ruin Lemony’s life through destroying the only thing he deemed incorruptible, untainted by the treachery surrounding every aspect of his life, the only thing that made him happy:

Rootbeer floats.

She put an absurd amount of effort into this.  The diner Lemony goes to solely for the rootbeer?  She shut it down after anonymously reporting several health code violations.  Every rootbeer bottle Lemony gets from the store?  Thoroughly shaken by Ellington.  His ice cream?  She takes it out of the freezer and lets it melt, or if she’s feeling particularly evil she eats all of it and sticks it back into the fridge.

Lemony thinks that this is the behavior of other volunteers, ones who have no regard for the possessions of others.  It’s not until the Baudelaire mansion burns to the ground that Ellington reveals herself.

“Snicket.”

“Feint.”

“Your suffering brings me great joy.”

“You... you killed Beatrice?  You left their home in ashes just to get back at me.”

“What?  No, who are you even talking about?  I’ve been preventing you from having decent rootbeer floats for the past fifteen years.”

“...”

“If I was going to kill someone, it would be you.”

“My rootbeer... how could you?!”

“You don’t deserve rootbeer!”

“Ellington, that’s like saying you don’t deserve coffee!”

They proceed to have one of the most petty arguments recorded in history.

“And you know what?!  Your sister’s been helping me get my revenge the whole time!”

“Just because I killed your father?!  Does that warrant such atrocities?!  What did my rootbeer ever do to you?!”

#atwq #asoue #lemony snicket #ellington feint #listen i hate the theory that ellington helped set fire to the baudelaire mansion #i like the theory that ellington does really petty stuff to lemony as a form of revenge #because ellington is not evil. end of discussion

[princeyjem]

not to have atwq brainrot in 2024 but like the new Hozier song??

mad Lemony/Ellington vibes

making me wanna do art for this series again aaaaaaa it's been so long

#all the wrong questions #atwq #lemony snicket #ellington feint #ellimony #remembered the actual ship name #lmao

[femme-fatale-fete]

Femme Fatale Fête Round One, First Heat

Faye Valentine (Cowboy Bebop)

Bio: Becomes a bounty hunter after having been bounty hunted herself, sarcastic and arrogant, able to get what she wants through seduction but might rather just stay home and not do anything at all. 

Fans say: Mood.

Ellington Feint (All the Wrong Questions)

Bio: A mysterious girl with a mysterious past trying to steal a precious statue through multiple doublecrossings and at least one jailbreak. Fans say: Ellington is a very interesting character made even more so by the subversion of her casting as a "femme fatale" at the end of the series as her motives and background are revealed in a way that highlights the fact that she's just a scared girl and breaks Lemony Snicket out of his own role as the film noir detective by his ultimate betrayal of Ellington as well as a collapse of the "moral" character he appeared to have, painting him (our 1st person POV narrarator) as the mysterious and unreliable criminal instead

#Bracket competition #poll #femme fatale #faye valentine #ellington feint #all the wrong questions #cowboy bebop #lemony snicket