Sugar Bowl Gen - Blog Posts

Maybe I'm just a sentimental fool but sometimes I think too hard about the Baudelaire's parents, and all their peers in VFD before the schism, even Olaf, going on missions together and gathering for dinners and defending each other in fights and bickering during a stakeout and my entire brain just goes :(

Olaf putting out fires and doing good work with Jacques and Kit and the others. The others listening to him play piano (because genuinely? He was good at it in the show.) Lemony being everyone's collective friend that constantly needs to be stopped from starting a soliloquy every time they're out anywhere. Esme being well-intentioned, if a bit egotistical, and using her penchant for blending in with high society to gather important information. Monty bringing his iguana to group meetings sometimes, and teaching certain other members how to take care of his reptiles temporarily when he needed to leave the house for longer periods of time- keeping guest rooms ready in the house. Beatrice inventing a way to patch up Lemony's typewriter when he drags it along on a mission and it gets damaged. Kit and Olaf using empty safe places to slack off a little and relax in-between missions, when they need a moment to take things less seriously. Group musical theatre nights. Beach visits. Theme park attendance. Vacations, even.

Thinking about them all together, bonded by good intentions, shared secrets and common interests kills me inside </3

okay this theory might be a little controversial..

First things first, we are ignoring the show's "genetically altered sugar" sugar bowl excuse, because that feels like it was pulled out of someone's ass.

Hear me out: there is nothing in the sugar bowl + esmé is still good.

So we know that the schism didn't start with sugar bowl gen, but thats when it really exploded. Esmé Squalor is personally mad, not because Beatrice Baudelaire is a volunteer, but because her trust was betrayed.

Esmé while talking to Dewey Denoument gets told, "The container is yours. Not what it contains."

This means VFD believes the sugar bowl itself is still Esmé's. We know sometimes Lemony will use metaphors for the plot, like the great unknown.

I believe the sugar bowl is a physical stand-in for the betrayal Esmé felt with Beatrice.

When VFD split, friends became enemies. We know this, right? And we know that Esmé and Beatrice were friends that became enemies.

What if the sugar bowl is just a figurative(?) show of that? Esmé doesn't really care about VFD or arson, she just wants her sugar bowl.

And while we get the 'olaf knows' scene, Esmé probably already knew. It doesn't say 'olaf and esmé know'.

Now hear me out again– Esmé holds out the information, not telling Olaf. In hopes that Beatrice will see that she is trustworthy and give back the sugar bowl.

Esmé was obviously there when the dart was thrown. She was standing directly across from Beatrice. She definitely saw Beatrice throw the dart.

So why do we still get the 'olaf knows' scene? If Esmé was truly evil, wouldn't she immediately tell Olaf so they could incriminate them?

Esmé wants to be trustworthy, she wants to be Beatrice's friend again, she wants to hold the sugar bowl again.

Esmé only hurts the baudelaire children at Olaf's command.

"I helped you chase those orphans through the least in places in the hinterlands" That's what she says. She could care less about revenge.

In Penultimate Peril, Esmé has the opportunity to poison everyone. She doesn't. She genuinely does not want revenge.

(This is definitely less believable than my Poe is an ex-volunteer theory.)

But.. thats just my two cents lol