The cycles of organizations that cope with evil theory
I seriously believe that Lemony is someone who has read a lot about the history of the very secret organization to which he belongs. Is there a passage in the book “Should not You Be in School?” (SYBIS) that explains much about the past and the future of V.F.D, and I would like to explain my theory here.
Lemony - "We believe in an aristocracy"
Moxie: "Doesn't mean people who are rich and powerful?"
Lemony: "Not that kind of aristocracy. Not an aristocracy of power, based on rank or wealth, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate, and the plucky. Our members are found in all nation and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between us when we meet... We represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory over cruelty and chaos. We're had different names through history, but all the words that describe us are false and all attempts to organize us fail. Right now we're called V.F.D., but all our schisms and arguments might cause us disappear. It won't matter. People like us always slip though the net. Our true home is the imagination, and our kingdom is wide-open world."
So, if Lemony says that for many, many years there is an organization that fights evil, I believe that. This organization has changed its name over the years. But an important Lemony phrase is this:
"all attempts to organize us fail."
To organize means "to set up an administrative structure for". (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/organize)
Lemony's claim is that the original group of people was not exactly an "organization" ... It was a set of volunteers who simply did good and fought against evil, based on personal ideological principles shared by several others around the world. When these volunteers happened to meet, they came to understand each other and fight evil together. This is very different from the VFD we see in ATWQ. In ATWQ, VFD is a well-structured organization in which there are reports, assessments, teachers, training schools, specific missions and so on. Thus, the VFD to which Lemony is a part, is different from the idea that Lemony really admires.
If you stop to think, Lemony suggests that during human history there was always the following cycle:
1 - Individual noble individuals try to fight evil alone.
2. Individual noble people realize that there are others who share similar principles, and so begin to communicate.
3 - Noble and individual people create a way to identify each other. And so they create a name for this group.
4 - This group begins to realize that there are advantages in creating procedures, raising funds, recruiting new participants. Then a secret organization is born.
5 - This organization works well for a time, until disagreements arise, usually involving money, use of weapons, marriage and how to care for children.
6 - The organization passes through a Great Schism.
7 - The members of the formed organizations stop to fight evil and begin to fight each other.
8 - The distrust is so great, that the organization is undone.
9 - Each noble person individually tries to fight evil alone.
And the cycle begins again.
What we see in ASOUE is only the final part of this cycle, and the beginning of a new cycle. Count Olaf is the element that is destroying the VFD organization. But from time to time a similar events the actions of Count Olaf will happen.
