1. by Don L. F. Nilsen and Alleen Pace Nilsen
Onomastic Sarcasm, Cynicism and Mock Condescension in Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events (by Daniel Handler)
by Don L. F. Nilsen and
Alleen Pace Nilsen

2. 2016 Newtflix Series: Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events

3. Don Nilsen as Count Olaf

4. Tracey Flores’s Students as Count Olaf

5. One: “The Bad Beginning”
If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle. ~~~Lemony Snicket

6. Two: “The Reptile Room”
Dramatic irony is a cruel occurrence, one that is almost always upsetting, and I'm sorry to have it appear in this story, but Violet, Klaus, and Sunny have such unfortunate lives, that it was only a matter of time before dramatic irony would rear its ugly head. ~~~Lemony Snicket

7. Three: “The Wide Window”
Oftentimes, when people are miserable, they will want to make other people miserable, too. But it never helps. ~~~Lemony Snicket

8. Four: “The Miserable Mill”
If an optimist had his left arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say, in a pleasant and hopeful voice, "Well, this isn't too bad. I don't have my left arm anymore, but at least nobody will ever ask me whether I am right-handed or left-handed," but most of us would say something more along the lines of, "Aaaaah! My arm! My arm!" ~~~Lemony Snicket

9. Five: “The Austere Academy”
Assumptions are dangerous things to make, and like all dangerous things to make - bombs, for instance, or strawberry shortcake - if you make even the tiniest mistake you can find yourself in terrible trouble. ~~~Lemony Snicket

10. Six: “The Ersatz Elevator”
To hear the phrase "our only hope" always makes one anxious, because it means that if the only hope doesn't work, there is nothing left, and that is never pleasant to think about, however true it might be. ~~~Lemony Snicket

11. Seven: “The Vile Village”
The quoting of an aphorism, like the angry barking of a dog or the smell of overcooked broccoli, rarely indicates that something helpful is about to happen. ~~~Lemony Snicket

12. Nine: “The Carnivorous Carnival”
"It doesn't take courage to kill someone," Klaus said. "It takes a severe lack of moral stamina." ~~~Lemony Snicket

13. Ten: “The Slippery Slope”
Taking one's chances is like taking a bath, because sometimes you end up feeling comfortable and warm, and sometimes there is something terrible lurking around that you cannot see until it is too late and you can do nothing else but scream and cling to a plastic duck.
~~~Lemony Snicket

14. Eleven: “The Grim Grotto”
Of course it is boring to read about boring things, but it is better to read about things that make you yawn with boredom than something that will make you weep uncontrollably, pound your fists on the floor, and leave tearstains all over your pillowcase, sheets, and boomerang collection.
~~~Lemony Snicket

15. Twelve: “The Penultimate Peril”
But the three siblings were not born yesterday. Violet was born more than fifteen years before this particular Wednesday, and Klaus was born approximately two years after that, and even Sunny who had just passed out of babyhood, was not born yesterday. Neither were you, unless of course I am wrong, in which case, welcome to the world, little baby, and congratulations on learning to read so early in life.
~~~Lemony Snicket

16. Thirteen: “The End”
A moral compass appears to be a delicate device, and as people grow older and venture out into the world, it often becomes more and more difficult to figure out which direction one’s moral compass is pointing, so it is harder and harder to figure out the proper thing to do.
~~~Lemony Snicket

17. Snow Scout Alphabet Pledge
The Snow Scout Alphabet Pledge is a parody of the Boy Scout pledge:
A boy scout is clean.
A boy scout is helpful.
A boy scout is reverent….
We’re going to make our own Snow Scout Alphabet pledge. Alleen will be our Scout Master from A to Z.
After Z take a big breath and make a long, airy sound, as if imitating the wind.

18. Snow Scout Alphabet Pledge
Snow Scouts are accomodating, basic, calm, darling, emblematic, frisky, grinning, human, innocent, jumping, kept, limited, meek, nap-loving, official, pretty, quarantined, recent, scheduled, tidy, understandable, victorious, wholesome, xylophone, young, and zippered—every morning, every afternoon, every night, and all day long!*
*Take a big breath and make a long, airy sound, as if imitating the wind.

19. “Count Olaf” Anagrams Al Funcoot Flacutono (the foreman)
Flacutono (the surgeon)

20. MORT = DEATH Mort Main Mountains Le Petit Mort
Mortuary Money Management Bank
Memento Mori School Motto

21. FORESHADOWING Hotel Denouement Mount Fraught Grim River
Salmonella Café

22. ALLITERATION
Caligari Carnival, Domocles Dock, Finite Forest, Fowl Fountain, Grim Gorgonian Grotto, Lake Lachrymose and Stricken Stream…
Fickle Ferry, Hurricane Herman, Lachrymose Leeches and Lousy Lane

23. PUNS
Operating Theaters
Stiletto Heels
Red Herrings

24. ERSATZ The Ersatz Elevator
Ersatz Rope (bedsheets for climbing up the elevator)
Ersatz Guardian (Esme Squalor)
You can imagine that Duncan and Isadora free themselves from Count Olaf’s clutches…, “but such imaginings will be ersatz, as are all imaginings.”

25. REPETITIONS OF V.F.D. Valley of Four Drafts Veiled Facial Disguises
Verbal Fridge Dialogue
Verdant Flammable Devices
Verse Fluctuation Declaration
Versed Furtive Disclosure
Vertical Flame Diversion
Very Fresh Dill
Village of Fowl Devotees

26. Voice Fakery Disguises
Volatile Fungus Deportation
Voluntary Fish Domestication
Volunteer Factual Dispatch
Volunteers Fighting Diseases
Very Fancy Doilies
Volunteer Fire Department
Very Fine Delivery!

27. Smart Allusions from History in the Lemony Snicket Books: Isadora Duncan, Ghengis Kahn and Nero

28. Smart Allusions from Literature: Charles Baudelaire & Dante Alligieri

29. T. S. Eliot and Edgar A. Guest

30. George Orwell and Herman Melville

31. Vladimir Nabokov

32. Edgar Allan Poe and J. D. Salinger

33. A Smart Alllusion from Mythology: Medussa

34. And here are are some other rhetorical devices:
Acronyming: VFD: Verbal Fridge Dialogue, Village of Fowl Devotees,
Alliteration: Briny Beach, Caligary Carnival, Curdled Cave, Daedalus Dock
Count Olaf’s Disguises: Al Funcoot, Staphano, Captain Sham, Foreman Flacutono, Coach Genghis, Gunther, Detective Dupin, Mattathias, Surgeon Flacutono
Ersatz: Elevator, Rope, Guardian, Imaginings
Gothic and Death References: Grim River, Hotel Denouement, Memento Mori, Mortmain Mountains, Salmonella Cafe
Puns: Operating Theatres, Stiletto Heels

35. Some Baudelaire Guardians and Some Baudelaire Locations
Baudelaire Guardians: Count Olaf, Dr. Montgomery Montgomery (Uncle Monty), Aunt Josephine, Sir, Jerome and Esme Squalor, Village of Fowl Devotees (Hector), Dewey Denouement
Baudelaire Locations: Count Olaf’s house, Uncle Monty’s house, Lake Lachrymose, Prufrock Preparatory School, 667 Dark Avenue Penthouse, Village of Fowl Devotees, Heimlich Hospital, Caligary Carnival, Mortmain Mountains, Queequeg Submarine, Hotel Denouement

36. Klaus’s Research Sunny’s Bites and Violet’s Inventions
Klaus’s Research: grammar books, gum and log scraper, Village of Fowl Devotees Rules, Madam Lulu’s library, V.F.D. Library
Sunny’s Bites: Edgar Poe’s shoes, hooked-handed man’s fake arms, Count Olaf’s wooden leg, Dr. Orwell’s sword, staples, wall of the elevator, eye of the Fowl Fountain, file cabinets, ivy on the roller coaster, Judge Strauss’s hand, canned food, kitchen table
Violet’s Inventions: Grappling Hook, lock pick noise making device, noisy shoes, rope, paperclip and ribbon keychain, ice shoes, drag chute

37. Recycling Intertextuality and Smart Allusions
Dr. Georgina Orwell
Medusoid Mycelium Mushrooms
Esmé & Jerome Squalor’s Penthouse at 667 Dark Avenue
J. D. Salinger’s Short Story: “To Esmé with Love and Squalor”
Violet’s Name from T. S. Eliot’s “The Violet Hours”
The Austere Academy = Prufrock Preparatory School

38. Vice Principal Nero
Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire = Claus and Sunny Von Bulow = Charles Baudelaire ( )
Isadora and Duncan Quagmire = Isadora Duncan ( )
The Queequeg Submarine Herman Melville Team and the Ahab Memorial Hospital
vs. The Edgar A. Guest Team
The Hostile Hospital = The Heimlich Hospital

39. Patients include: Emma Bovary, Clarissa Dalloway, Orlando, and Sappho
Edgar Allan Poe: Mr. Poe, The Nevermore Tree, and the Murder of Crows
Count Olaf = Captain Sham = Surgeon Flacatouno = Al Funcoot = Coach Ghengis
Mort = Mort Main Mountains = Le Petit Mort = Mortuary Money Management = Memento Mori
Hotel Denouement, Mount Fraught, Grim River and Salmonella Café

40. Dedications to Beatrice
To Beatrice—Darling, Dearest, Dead…
For Beatrice—You’ll always be in my heart, in my mind, and in your grave.
For Beatrice—When we were together I felt breathless. Now you are.
For Beatrice—Our love broke my heart, and stopped yours.

41. For Beatrice—When we met, my life began. Soon afterwards, yours ended.
For Beatrice—Summer without you is as cold as winter. Winter without you is even colder.
To Beatrice—My love flew like a butterfly,
Until death swooped down like a bat.
As the poet Emma Montana McEllroy said:
“That’s the end of that.”
For Beatrice—When we met, you were pretty, and I was lonely. Now, I’m pretty lonely.
For Beatrice—Dead women tell no tales. Sad men write them down.

42. Beatrice in Dante’s Divine Comedy
At age 9, Dante Aligieri met Beatrice Portinari, and fell in love.
They greeted each other on the street for 16 years.
Dante was promised to another woman, Gemma.
In 1290, at age 25, Beatrice died.
Dante took refuge in writing to and about Beatrice.

43. Dante dedicated his Divine Comedy to Beatrice, who in the novel served as his guide through Paradise.
With Gemma, he had a daughter named Antonia
She became a nun, and took the name of Sister Beatrice.

44. WEB SITE
LEMONY SNICKET: