What do you think is the identity of the actor that played Young Rolf in Zombies in the Snow? Sally Sebald calls him 'Omar', which is a name that people frequently mix up with Olaf in the series, but in the photo he's clearly a teenager despite the movie having been made recently at the time of The Reptile Room. This has just always bothered me and I wondered if you had any thoughts on it.
This has bothered me immensely as well! Especially since there are been clues that Olaf worked with Gustav Sebald during his youth:
âDidI ever tell you how I began my career as an actor?ââItâsa fascinating story,â the hook-handed man said.âItcertainly is,â Olaf agreed. âGive me some more wine, andIâll tell you. Now then, as a child, I was alwaysthe most handsome fellow at school, and one day a young director . ..â[The Carnivorous Carnival, Chapter Two]
But clearly Olaf starring in the very movie which is supposed to expose him is very difficult to believe. Also please remember that by Lemonyâs self-admission the photographs taken from the un-Authorized Autobiography cannot be trusted: when he canât find any, he replaces them with similar pictures of people more or less the same age (emphasis on âmore or lessâ).
Maybe weâre reading too much into it and Sally is just mistaking a personâs name for Omar, as a running gag and a echo to âThe Vile Villageâ.
A more outlanfish theory would be to identify this boy as Omeros, a young castaway from âThe Endâ. The similarity with âOmarâ alone would explain the confusion better. Heâs described as a âyoung boyâ, which fits the description given by Sally in her letter:
âOmeros is the root of the trouble,â Dr. Kurtz said, pointing at the young boy. âHeâs the one who gave Ishmael the harpoon gun insteadof dumping it in the arboretum!â[The End, Chapter Twelve]
So it could still be possible that Omeros was a child actor who starred in Gustav Sebaldâs Zombies in the Snow and ended up on the Island some time between âThe Reptile Roomâ and âThe Endâ.
The timing fits, because we know for a fact that at least one ship sank near the Island during that year: the Prospero. The cheesemakers from Valorous Farm Dairy smuggled the Incredibly Deadly Viper onbard, as recounted in the un-Authorized Autobiography. So itâs possible that other people could have been onboard as well, especially if they had been in on Gustavâs and Montyâs plan, which involved taking the Prospero. Most of the castaways seem to share a shady past with VFD, after all.
Strangely thereâs some speculation that Olaf may have a bastard son lying around: in the un-Authorized Autobiography, Lemony tries to make a list of Olafâs allies through coded messages, and mentions a âsonâ amongst them. Is Omeros that son? Considering that Omeros eventually gives Ishmael a harpoon gun to kill Olaf, this would make for a particularily tragic family history.