What R was trying to say 2.0
I was thinking about this letter again today during a trip I took. The more I think about this letter from "R," the more evident it becomes that the author wanted to convey the following message: "I am not the real R, and besides, I am your close friend." I'll include the entire letter and the note written by Lemony here to illustrate this. I've already spoken about this, but I'll reiterate it here.
Thank heaven you are alive and relatively well! Last night, when I arrived at the Orion Observatory to give my annual lecture to the Meteorological Society, I saw someone breaking into a navy blue Jeep parked in the southwest corner of the parking lot, and my heart leaped: perhaps there was a chance you were still alive. I did not expect to find out for certain until the usher handed me your letter. You took a terrible chance in contacting me, but I am glad you did. I am so sorry that I was unable to prevent, or at least delay, your capture at my masked ball that evening, and I have been worried sick all these years that you were dead, despite rumors of your activities spreading through the network of loyal members. There are not many of us left, Mr. Snicket, but we are ready to help you in any way we can.
I cannot, however, help you answer the question you wrote me on that gum wrapper. That masked ball was the last public event the members of the organization dared attend together, so if one of them hid something in the guest room it would have been that evening, probably during the salad course, when Baron van de Wetering, costumed as an oak tree, created a distraction by pretending there was a tiger underneath the table. After the disastrous end to the evening, I did not dare call attention to your belongings which the police forgot to confiscate—they might have deduced that you were attending the party after all, and made things even worse for all of us.
O Mr. Snicket, everything you kept in my home is gone. Your bullfighting costume is gone, along with all of the other disguises you kept with me: the fake wooden leg, the box of wigs, and that strange suit that enabled you to look like a chest of drawers. Your typewriter is gone, and the bright blue accordion, which I believe you told me was your third favorite. Everything in that guest room is gone, and all the things in the guest room next door. Beatrice, of course, is far past complaining about lost possessions—the very reason, I am certain, that you have dedicated your life to researching the lives of those three poor children.
Are they gone, too? It seems everything is nowadays. Gone are all my beloved snacks, and my furniture: the tables are gone, round, square, rectangular—all the tables, and the chairs that sat with them. Gone are the drapes, except for the fireproof ones, which still sit in a heap, awaiting the beginning of the trial. Gone is the grand staircase with those two carved wooden crows at the ends of each of the banisters. Gone are the houseplants, and the cloth napkins with the crest of Winnipeg embroidered on one side and the underground map of the city embroidered on the other. Gone are the wigs I used, when I wanted to disguise myself as you disguised as someone else. Gone is the cigar box my father gave me, on my first visit home after I was taken, and gone is my childhood bed, where my tutors at V.F.D. watched over me until it was time to grab me by my ankles and introduce me to my new life. Everything is gone, Mr. Snicket. Every page of every book in my private library—Charlotte’s Web, Green Mansions, Ivan Lachrymose: Lake Explorer—is unreadable ash.
It was so cold that I closed my windows and could not hear the crickets, so it was the sound of a collapsing bookcase that woke me that night, and I hurried out of the blazing mansion into the snow, dressed in my pajamas and clutching a handful of photographs that I had been looking at before I fell asleep. I was gazing at these photographs and wondering how everything could have gone so wrong. It seems to me, my dear friend, that one moment you and I were becoming friends in the infirmary, telling each other stories to distract us from the pain in our ankles, and the next moment the entire organization was scattered, like ashes blowing in the woeful and watery Winnipeg winds. Fire is like greed, my comrade. It spreads across the world, thinking only of itself, seizing everything it sees, and ruining everyone’s fun.
Take these photographs, Mr. Snicket. They are all I can offer you, besides my loyalty and concern and two handkerchiefs I have just now found in my pockets.Study these pictures, my friend—the portrait of your sister and me, the portrait we told everyone was your sister and me but really wasn’t, the snapshot of the Second Annual Codebreaking Picnic, and these two images of our meeting hall, the first one empty and the second one with one lone figure, waiting patiently for the session to begin in that enormous room of green wood. How content that young woman looks, don’t you think? How content, and yet how flammable.
This letter reached me here at Veblen Hall, where I am waiting to interview some of the caterers about who exactly was driving the car that terrible day. As moving as her words are, I cannot be sure this is really the Duchess of Winnipeg. The Jeep outside the Orion Observatory was of course not navy blue but black, and parked in the northwest corner, not the southwest. She would never forget this. The real R. was tested on this information every month for more than seven years. Is she trying to tell me something? Was there another Jeep parked in the lot? Or is this a letter from a liar? These photographs could have been stolen from her mansion the night of the party, or could have been manufactured somehow—perhaps by the advanced computer at Prufrock Preparatory School.
The letter was wrapped in a white linen napkin, with the crest of Winnipeg embroidered on one side. The other side is blank. Crickets are usually silent in winter. I fear the worst.
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I used to defend the idea that the error in the car's color and location was a kind of Duress Code: information sent by the letter's author to indicate she was under duress. But that doesn't seem to make sense. Dante pointed out that the letter doesn't appear to contain any kind of trap, and that it doesn't make sense to believe that enemies coerced the letter's author into writing a letter to Lemony without any clear purpose. Still, the letter clearly seems very subtle: it seems to want to convey information that only Lemony would understand, not because the author was under duress, but because the author was afraid that the letter would fall into the wrong hands and confidential information would get to those people.
So then... the big question of this letter, to which the chapter title itself, chosen by Lemony, refers, is: was this letter written by R or not? And the related question is: what message does the letter intend to convey? Lemony presented several options. But his final sentence is the most significant: if the letter wasn't sent by the real R, that means the real R must be dead. I now believe that this is indeed the case. The handwriting of the real R is different from the handwriting of the author of this letter. And as indicated in TWW, when laypeople analyze handwritings, it is possible to see large discrepancies. And a large discrepancy exists in the way the real R wrote the initial of her name (as indicated in TBL) and the way the author of this letter wrote it.
In other words, Daniel Handler wanted the person who wrote this letter to be an imposter, but not an enemy. And that's what makes the letter so confusing. It's easy to think that the person who assumed R's identity was an enemy of Lemony. But that doesn't seem to be the case. First, there is strong evidence that the letter's author is trying to tell Lemony in that very letter that she is not the real R. For a long time, many thought that the error in the car's color and parking position was unintentional. But everything indicates that it is an intentional error that the author inserted to say: the person writing here is not R, despite being signed as R. This would only be a hypothesis if it weren't for the linen napkin. The letter's author first highlighted the description on the napkin. She said: cloth napkins with the crest of Winnipeg embroidered on one side and the underground map of the city embroidered on the other. She didn't need to write that. But since she did, she didn't need to send Lemony exactly those napkins. Sending this might seem pointless, but it actually needs a purpose to make any rational sense. Why emphasize the description of details found on original napkins only to send fake napkins along with the letter? The author of the letter is practically saying: "Do you understand? I'm not the real R, nor do I have access to her real napkins, and I deliberately got something wrong that she would never get wrong." And finally, she sent a picture of a girl, called her a young woman, and said she was flammable. Evidently, the author of the letter meant that the woman that the girl in the picture had become had died in a fire. Probably the girl in the picture is the real R, who died in the fire described in the letter itself.
Furthermore, the letter's author makes reference to crickets in winter. One of the messages crickets can convey (related to summer being over) is "probably in disguise." That's why the letter's author wrote about crickets in winter, to indicate that she herself was in disguise.
Furthermore, the letter's author makes reference to crickets in winter. One of the messages crickets can convey (related to summer being over) is "probably in disguise." That's why the letter's author wrote about crickets in winter, to indicate that she herself was in disguise. The idea of a disguised "duchess" has been present since the introduction of LSTUA.
On the other hand, what we have here is actually an identification code. An identification code consists of adding something to a message that only a specific person could know, usually because it was mentioned in a private, casual conversation. It's very easy to do between close friends, as casual conversations happen frequently. Note this excerpt: "Your typewriter is gone, and the bright blue accordion, which I believe you told me was your third favorite." The author certainly wanted Lemony to think: "Who was the only person you talked to about your list of favorite accordions? And who is the only person who cares so much about you that they would remember that?"
I truly believe that the person who became a friend imposter is Beatrice. She was staying at R's mansion, as the author acknowledges in this letter. Note: ". You took a terrible chance in contacting me, but I am glad you did." During the ball, the person Lemony came into contact with was Beatrice. (TAA). Furthermore, R and Beatrice were longtime friends, as indicated by TBL, and both received training as actresses. Furthermore, the resemblance between Beatrice and R was so great that even Beatrice's bats got confused and delivered to the Duchess of Winnipeg a letter that was meant for Beatrice (TBL). Note: "Beatrice, of course, is far past complaining about lost possessions—the very reason, I am certain, that you have dedicated your life to researching the lives of those three poor children. Are they gone, too?" Essentially, the author of the letter is saying that everything in that room, including Beatrice, is gone. This doesn't necessarily mean "Beatrice is dead." It could mean, "Beatrice's identity no longer exists." But immediately afterward, she expresses concern for the children, asking if they are alive.
From my point of view, it's clear that these are the words of a worried mother who felt she needed to hide to keep at least one of her children alive. After all, if Beatrice were alive, Count Olaf would have no reason to leave the Baudelaire children alive, as the inheritance would belong to Beatrice and not the children. For 15 years she remained hidden, as there was a possibility that Sunny had been chosen by Olaf to be kept alive (a choice he did in fact make at the end of TSS). Until finally, Lemony was able to pass the message to Beatrice: "Count Olaf is..." Obviously, the complete sentence is "Count Olaf is dead."
