The End
From ''The Lemony Snicket Wiki''
<< The Penultimate Peril | (last in series)
| ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 The cover of the The End. | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
Contents |
[edit] Overview
The End is Book the Thirteenth and last in the series, this book was released on October 13, 2006. The first chapter of the book was released one month before the book came out.
[edit] The Dedication
For Beatrice--
I cherished, you perished,
The world's been nightmarished.
[edit] Letter to the Editor
To My Kind Editor,
The end of THE END can be found at the end of THE END.
With all due respect,
Lemony Snicket
[edit] The Back of the Book
Dear Reader,
You are presumably looking at the back of this book, or the end of THE END. The end of THE END is the best place to begin THE END, because if you read THE END from the beginning of the beginning of THE END to the end of the end of THE END, you will arrive at the end of the end of your rope.
This book is the last in A Series of Unfortunate Events, and even if you braved the previous twelve volumes, you probably can't stand such unpleasantries as a fearsome storm, a suspicious beverage, a herd of wild sheep, an enormous bird cage, and a truly haunting secret about the Baudelaire parents.
It has been my solemn occupation to complete the history of the Baudelaire orphans, and at last I am finished. You likely have some other occupation, so if I were you I would drop this book at once, so THE END does not finish you.
With all due respect,
Lemony Snicket
[edit] Characters
[edit] Characters that re-appear
- Klaus Baudelaire
- Violet Baudelaire
- Sunny Baudelaire
- Count Olaf
- Kit Snicket
- The Incredibly Deadly Viper
[edit] Characters that first appear in this book
[edit] Summary
The End begins with Count Olaf and the Baudelaires fleeing the burning Hotel Denouement. After surviving a storm, they find themselves on a coastal shelf of an island inhabited by a mysterious group of people. They are first greeted by a little girl, Friday. Count Olaf, who had previously proclaimed himself king of Olaf-Land, threatens the girl with a harpoon gun. Friday is unfazed; she refuses Olaf permission to land on the island, but invites the Baudelaires onto the island. Along the way, she describes what the islanders do with their time--all year long, they build an outrigger on the coastal shelf, and once a year the water rises high enough to submerge the shelf and launch the outrigger. This is known as Decision Day, when anyone who wishes can board the ship and sail away. The island facilitator, Ishmael, introduces the Baudelaires to the strange island customs. Also, Ishmael has the islanders (most named after famous literary or historical castaways) introduce themselves to the Baudelaires.
Although Ishmael always tells the islanders "I won't force you", it soon becomes apparent that his decisions go largely unquestioned and his suggestions are obeyed like orders. After the Baudelaires introduce themselves, Friday's mother, Mrs. Caliban toasts the "Baudelaire orphans" (despite their not having mentioned their lost parents) with the coconut cordial which everybody carries, but which the orphans themselves dislike.
After another storm, more objects wash up including a giant pile of books tied together in the shape of a cube, an unconscious and pregnant Kit Snicket, and the Incredibly Deadly Viper from Uncle Monty's collection. The island people arrive and Count Olaf tries to fool them with a bad Kit Snicket disguise (with the diving-helmet containing the Medusoid Mycelium tucked under his dress as his supposed baby). Strangely, the islanders immediately see through Olaf's flimsy disguise and cage him. The islanders then debate whether the orphans should be expelled from the colony when Count Olaf yells out from the cage that they are carrying banned items in their pockets. Ishmael decides that the children, Kit, and Olaf should all be abandoned unless they agree to abide by the colony's rules. After everyone leaves, Olaf tries to tempt the children to let him out of the cage by promising to explain the many mysteries and secrets which they have been surrounded by since The Bad Beginning, but they ignore him.
That night, two of the islanders (Finn and Erewhon) sneak out to feed the children and ask them a favor. A group of discontented colonists are planning a mutiny against Ishmael in the morning, and they ask the Baudelaires to go over to the arboretum where all the contraband items are collected, and find or make some weapons to use in the rebellion. Further, the mutineers refuse to help Kit unless the Baudelaires help them. The children agree, and set off for the arboretum. The orphans discover a well-appointed living area, before they are in turn discovered by Ishmael. They learn that their parents were once the island's leaders and were responsible for many improvements meant to make island-life easier and more pleasant, but they were eventually overthrown by Ishmael, who believed that a strictly-enforced simple life (combined with the opiate of the coconut cordial) was the best way to avoid conflict. The Baudelaires find an enormous history of the island, entitled A Series of Unfortunate Events, written by the many different people who had served as island leaders, including their parents and Ishmael. Ishmael also makes references to many other people, including a girl with only one eyebrow and ear (the mother of Isaac Anwhistle) and Gregor Anwhistle.
The Baudelaires and Ishmael go back to the other side of the island, where the mutiny is already underway. Count Olaf returns, still in disguise. After a brief exchange, Ishmael harpoons Olaf in the stomach, which shatters the helmet containing the Medusoid Mycelium, infecting the island's entire population at once. With Count Olaf slowly bleeding to death, the Baudelaires run back to the arboretum to try to find some horseradish to cure everyone. They learn that their parents had hybridized an apple tree with horseradish, allowing the fruit to cure the effects of the Medusoid Mycelium. The Incredibly Deadly Viper offers them an apple. After sharing the apple and curing themselves, they then gather more apples for the island's inhabitants, only to discover that the island people have abandoned the mutiny and boarded their outrigger canoe, ready to set sail. Ishmael refuses to allow the apples on-board, though it is clear that he himself has already eaten one to cure himself, and the boat sails away to a horseradish factory to save everyone (It is hinted though, that one apple might have been sneaked on board by the Incredibly Deadly Viper to tide them over until they reach the factory).
Kit tells the Baudelaires the fate of the Quagmires, Hector, Captain Widdershins and his two stepchildren Fernald and Fiona. After reuniting on Hector's float, they are attacked by trained eagles, who pop the balloons supporting the float and send them hurtling back to the ruins of the Queequeg. There, they are taken by the mysterious object shaped like a question mark (called "The Great Unknown" by the author). In turn, the Baudelaires confess their own crimes committed at the Hotel Denouement. At this point, Kit is about to go into labor. She seems to be dying of the fungus, but cannot eat the bitter apple due to the hybrid's unhealthy effects on unborn babies. She is still trapped on top of the cube of books (her Vaporetto (boat) of Favorite Detritus) but when the critically-injured and fungus-choked Olaf hears that she is still alive, he takes a bite of an apple and manages to get her safely down onto the beach, giving her a single soft kiss as he lays her on the sand and collapses, still conscious, beside her. Kit recites the poem "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes" by Francis William Bourdillon, answered by Olaf reciting the final stanza of Philip Larkin's "This Be The Verse". He then dies. The Baudelaires help Kit give birth to a baby girl. She then dies due to the Medusoid Mycelium, after asking the orphans to name the baby after their mother.
The book ends with an epilogue in the form of a short book titled "Chapter Fourteen" that begins one year later. Kit's baby and the Baudelaires sail away from the island on the boat they arrived to the island on to immerse themselves in the world once more. As they board the ship, Kit's baby says the boat's actual name, Beatrice, which is also her own name. In the last illustration of the book, the ocean's wave contains an outline of a question mark, or The Unknown.
[edit] Afterward
The book contains a notable continuity error, as the author states that he was unable to find any trace of the Baudelaires and therefore knew nothing of their later lives. However other, earlier books by Lemony Snicket indicated that the Baudelaires do in fact reach the mainland, that Snicket is writing about them from some future date, and that all three orphans survive and grow older. The Beatrice Letters makes reference to Sunny when she is older, and The Reptile Room speaks of Klaus, many years later, wishing he had pushed Count Olaf back into his taxi, while The Bad Beginning: Rare Edition mentions that Violet will return to Briny Beach a third time; at least once mention is made of an adult Violet being haunted by nightmares of the trials she endured as a child. As the younger Beatrice, in The Beatrice Letters, is searching for Violet, Klaus and Sunny, it can be presumed that she is separated from the Baudelaires, who at the same time go missing and at some point possibly die as well as being immortalized by memorials and honors. This may be referenced in the punch-out anagram in the book which spells "Beatrice Sank," probably referring to the boat in which the children sail off in at the end of Chapter Fourteen. A poster shows the remains of the ship showing Klaus' glasses, Violet's ribbon, and Sunny's whisk.
At the end of the book, there is an author and illustrator page, as usual, and a final image which depicts a lonely sea with the murky shadow of a question mark in the water. The author and illustrator page was the only instance that artist Brett Helquist and Lemony Snicket swapped their billing places in the pictorial credits. Brett, dressed in Snicket's usual fashion, was photographed and on top, while Lemony, face exposed save for cucumber slices over his eyes, was drawn underneath—a comic depiction of Snicket, as he is shown relaxing beside a pool with a cocktail, when he (as are the Baudelaires) is usually depicted as terribly unfortunate. Their roles revert to their traditional billing places at the true conclusion of the book.
[edit] Differences
- This book is the only book in the whole series without an alliterative title.
- The American cover has the same illustration as the British cover. The only other book in the series to use the same cover picture for both editions is The Penultimate Peril.
- On October 10th (or, in the United Kingdom, the 9th) an audio CD called The Tragic Treasury was released, featuring all the songs from the audio versions of the books. The song title for The End has been given as "Shipwrecked".
- The ersatz ending to The End was the first instance that artist Brett Helquist and Author Lemony Snicket had swapped their billing places in the pictorial credits. Brett, dressed in Snicket's usual fashion, was photographed and on top, while Lemony, face exposed save for cucumber slices over his eyes, was drawn underneath—a comic depiction of Snicket, as he is shown relaxing beside a pool with a cocktail, when he is usually depicted as terribly unfortunate. Their roles revert to their traditional billing places at the true conclusion of the book.
- The UK Edition does not contain the final pictures in the book, nor does it have the question mark in the water at the end of Chapter Fourteen.
]== Memorable Quotes == "I've burned down the Hotel Denouement, and destroyed V.F.D. once and for all!" -Count Olaf "The night has a thousand eyes and the day but one, yet the light of the whole world dies with the dying sun. The mind has a thousand eyes and the heart but one, yet the light of a whole life dies when love is done." - Kit Snicket
[edit] Interesting Notes and Facts
[edit] Important Notes
- In the first chapter of the book Lemony Snicket says that there are 170 chapters altogether in the series. There are thirteen chapters in each book and there are thirteen books all together, thirteen times thirteen is 169. There is a fourteenth chapter in this book.
- The End is the only book not to have an alliterative title.
[edit] Outstanding Character Moments
- Friday refuses to bow to Count Olaf even when he threatens to harpoon her.
- Sunny suggests chucking Olaf overboard.
[edit] Very Important Events
- There is a massive storm out at sea.
- It is revealed that the Baudelaire parents were once on the island but were overthrown by Ishmael.
- Count Olaf dies after being harpooned in the stomach.
- Kit gives birth.
[edit] V.F.D. References
In chapter thirteen Lemony Snicket mentions the Baudelaires had investigated Volunteer Fire Department implying that this is the true meaning of V.F.D.
[edit] Real-World References
[edit] Foreshadowing
The last word of the volume is Beatrice.
[edit] References
[edit] See also
- The Beatrice Letters
- The Devastating Discoveries at A Wiki of Unfortunate Fan Fiction
