Esmé Squalor

Esmé Gigi Geniveve Squalor, well-known for her obsession with fashion and status, is a major antagonist in A Series of Unfortunate Events. She is an ally of Count Olaf and eventually becomes his girlfriend. Olaf eventually decides to leave her behind due to her obsession with fashion.

Personality

Esmé is materialistic and inconsiderate, obsessed with popularity, status, trends and fads. She is primarily focused on fashion and doing things that are "in" or stylish, disregarding practicality. She leads a life of crime because it is "in". Eventually she develops motherly tendencies for Carmelita Spats, freely buying her the same stylish things she herself is obsessed with.

Biography

The Ersatz Elevator

Esmé was first introduced in Book the Sixth as the city's sixth most important financial advisor. She is the wife of Jerome Squalor and the new guardian of the Baudelaire children. Esmé and Jerome live in an apartment penthouse at 667 Dark Avenue.

Esmé's obsession with fashionable things (what is "in" and what is "out") reveals itself when she announces that she only took the Baudelaires into her home because orphans are now "in". Her kind husband wanted to take care of the children as soon as he heard of their troubles, but his wife firmly refused because orphans were "out".

EsmeTop — Esmé at the open elevator door.

She does not care about the children and ignores them as she prepares for the upcoming "In Auction". Her assistant auctioneer, Gunther, is recognized to be Count Olaf in yet another disguise. They attempt to warn both the Squalors of his true identity, but Jerome thinks they are merely suffering from xenophobia and doesn't believe them. Esmé, however, reacts more sinisterly and pushes the three orphans down an empty elevator shaft, revealing to them that Count Olaf is in fact her former acting teacher. When the Baudelaires manage to foil Olaf's plot, she leaves her husband to run off with Olaf.

The Vile Village

Esmé and Olaf, posing as Police Officer Luciana andDetective Dupin (it is implied that Olaf murdered the real police chief), follow the Baudelaires to the Village of Fowl Devotees. Olaf murders a man with a similar tattoo of an eye named Jacques Snicket and frames the Baudelaires with his girlfriend's assistance. The children attempt to escape in their new guardian Hector's Hot Air Mobile Home with their friends, the Quagmires, but Esmé shoots the rope ladder with a harpoon gun and manages to prevent the Baudelaires from leaving, though the Quagmires and Hector manage to escape. When Esmé accidentally injures a crow in the process, the Village turns on her and Olaf and they skip town on a motorcycle.

The Hostile Hospital

Esmé poses as a doctor and chases the Baudelaires around the library of records. Since her stiletto shoes are actually made with stiletto daggers, her shoes keep sticking to the floor and she is unable to properly run after the three orphans. Thinking outside the box, she shoves over heavy cabinets of documents which fall over like dominoes, trapping and capturing Violet in the process. She, along with other members of Olaf's theatre troupe, arrange for Violet -now called Laura V. Bleediotie- to have the world's first ever "cranioectomy", a surgical procedure to remove Violet's head from her body. When Klaus and Sunny foil this plan, the hospital goes up in flames and Esmé escapes with Olaf.

The Carnivorous Carnival

Esmé wishes to celebrate the fact that everyone thinks Count Olaf is dead and the Baudelaires are thought to be his murderers. In reality, Count Olaf murdered Jacques Snicket - making everyone think Snicket was really the Count - and framed the Baudelaires for the crime in The Vile Village. But before they can celebrate, Count Olaf wants to find out where the Baudelaires are first. Though they hope that one or two burned to a crisp in the hospital fire, Olaf admits all three are alive and well. If two Baudelaires had died, Olaf hopes Violet survived because she's the prettiest, the Hook-Handed man hopes Sunny survived because he wants to stuff her in a birdcage again, and Esmé doesn't care who the survivor would be, she just wants to know where they are. The troupe goes to Madame Lulu, a fortune teller who has accurately predicted the location of the Baudelaires every time Count Olaf lost track of them. Madame Lulu seems to have been romantically involved with Count Olaf and flirts with him enough to make Esmé very jealous. When the Baudelaires use Olaf's and Esmé's clothing and makeup supplies to disguise themselves as carnival freaks, Esmé approves of their style. She laughs along with everyone else when Violet and Klaus - disguised as a two-headed person - struggle to eat an ear of corn, and wants Sunny - disguised as Chabo, a half-human, half-wolf baby - to stay away from her because the wild child may ruin her outfit.

Speaking of outfits, she dons a variety of items, including a sash reading "I Love Freaks", in order to seem accepting of the people employed in Caligari Carnival's freak show. She appears to care about their fates and attempts to convince them all to join Olaf's troupe, flattering most of the freaks into adoring her. The freaks are excited at the idea of joining Olaf's troupe, but the price they'd have to pay is throwing Madame Lulu into a pit of lions. Esmé is jealous of the fortune teller and is sick of Olaf buying her presents, so in order to quell the freaks' misgivings she gives them gifts to help them appear more normal. The freaks are thrilled and agree to murder Madame Lulu. Once Lulu is out of the picture, a happy Esmé and Olaf decide to burn down Caligari Carnival to remove all the evidence of their being there. Esmé travels with Olaf to the Mortmain Mountains in order to find the V.F.D. headquarters.

The Slippery Slope

Esmé, Olaf, and the troupe escape to the Mortmain Mountains, where they force Sunny to do ridiculous chores, and discuss their plan of action with the Man With A Beard But No Hair and the Woman With Hair But No Beard. In her latest "in" escapade, Esmé smokes a Verdant Flammable Device, which she thinks are cigarettes, and dons a dress that resembles a large fire. Hoping to trade Esmé for Sunny, the Baudelaires set a trap for Esmé, but then in a moment of conscience, they prevent her from falling into it. Esmé meets Carmelita Spats and decides to adopt her, much to Olaf's chagrin.

The Grim Grotto

Esmé wears a large octopus costume and slaps children with a giant noodle (or Tagliatelle Grande), forcing them to power Olaf's submarine. She continues to fuss over Carmelita and insists that Olaf give in to the girl's every whim, such as changing the name of the submarine from "The Olaf" (which Carmelita insists is a "cakesniffing name") to "The Carmelita."

The Penultimate Peril

Esmé appears at the Hotel Denouement's rooftop sunbathing salon wearing nothing but strategically placed lettuce leaves and strange telescopic glasses. She is followed by reporter Geraldine Julienne, who continues to hang on her every word. Later on, she states that she owns the sugar bowl. She also leaves Olaf's theater troupe and dumps Olaf himself. During the trial, she submits ruby-encrusted blank pages as evidence. When the Baudelaires set fire to the hotel, Esmé is inside. Whether or not she escapes is unknown; this is the last time she is seen in the series.

Disguises

The Vile Village - Esmé disguises herself as Officer Luciana
The Hostile Hospital - Esmé disguises herself as a doctor

Group

Esmé Squalor has a supposed "Fan Club", but it's really a team of fire-starting V.F.D agents. Their only known action is when they successfully took away the Mamba du Mal from the fire-fighting V.F.D.

Trivia

Esmé Squalor's name is a reference to J.D. Salinger's short story "For Esmé, With Love and Squalor" from his collection Nine Stories.
The initials of her name spell EGGS.