#daily punctillo

[snicketsleuth]

Hi! In Grim Grotto in 1st chapter kids are sailing through burnt Kaligari. There were many pieces of paper in the air but Klaus said they're probably from Daily Punctilio. However Snicket says they were wrong and those papers were from sth else which would really serve them. What was this publication?

Hi there!

“We didn’t stop him,either,” Klaus pointed out. “And plenty of people think we’reentirely responsible. These scraps of newspaper areprobably from The Daily Punctilio, which has blamed us for all sortsof terrible crimes.”“You’re right,” Violet said with asigh, although I have since discovered that Klaus was wrong, and that thescraps of paper blowing past the Baudelaires werefrom another publication that would have been of enormous help had they stoppedto collect the pieces.[The Grim Grotto, Chapter One]

It’s possible these scraps of newspaper actually come from Olivia’s archives. She collects all kinds of useful information about both sides of the Schism and the Baudelaire orphans didn’t get the opportunity to browse through them at the end of “The Carnivorous Carnival”.

We know that contrarily to the Daily Punctillo, some publications do report Olaf’s crime accurately:

“We figured that Olaf must have been an evil maneven before he met you,” Duncan continued, “so we looked up things inold newspapers. But it was difficult to find too many articles, because as youknow he always uses a different name. But we found a person matching hisdescription in the Bangkok Gazette, who was arrested for strangling a bishopbut escaped from prison in just ten minutes.”“That sounds like him, all right,” Klaussaid.“And then in the Verona Daily News,” Duncansaid, “there was a man who had thrown a rich widow off of a cliff. He hada tattoo of an eye on his ankle, but he had eluded authorities. And then wefound a newspaper from your hometown that said-”[The Austere Academy, Chapter Ten]

So I guess that Olivia had gotten her hands on this type of evidence, either from the Bangkok Gazette or the Verona Daily News. The Baudelaire orphans could have given this information to their V.F.D. allies, which would have helped in Olaf’s arrest and capture earlier than expected.

[snicketsleuth]

Hi sleuth! I was re-reading TUA and realised that Lemony's orbituary was published AFTER he wrote "A Series of Unfortunate Events". How could Beatrice have known that Lemony was "dead" when she IS the dead one?

Hi, @yjttdc!

From the way the obituary is written, it’s clear the Daily Punctillo has journalistic standards whatsoever. It’s entirely possible they published claims that Lemony was possibly dead years before this and are only now just “confirming” the death. They do say they have no idea when he died, so this “fictional death” could have been a media sensation years before that:

As no one seems to know when, where, how and why he died, there will be no funeral services. A burial may be scheduled later this year.[The un-AUthorized Autobiography, p.3]

There are, interestingly, two versions of the article going around. The one on page 3 ends with the curious announcement of a burial even though no funeral services are planned. The second one is on the back cover and features an erratum (which Lemony covers with a post-it note). Lemony says that the only true sentence in the article is the last one, but which version of the article is he actually talking about? The old one or the revised one?

According to Lemony, the entire article is based on lies so it’s possible the Daily Punctillo is lying about the entire chronology of Lemony’s fictional death too. A handful of such “obituaries” were likely published over the years.

We do not know why Beatrice thought Lemony was dead while she was on the island. Some say it’s because of the article Captain Widdershins showed her, but the chronology does seem a little off.

Captain Widdershinswas wrong to trust his stepson for so many years, and wrong to participate inthe destruction of Anwhistle Aquatics, and he was wrong to insist, as he did somany years ago, that a story in The Daily Punctilio was completely true, and toshow this article to so many volunteers, including the Baudelaire parents, theSnicket siblings, and the woman I happened to love.[The Grim Grotto, Chapter Thirteen]

It’s also possible she thought Lemony was dead because he didn’t send her a lot of letters. In “The Beatrice Letters”, his answer to her 200-pages break-up letter makes a point of telling her he won’t be able to contact her for a very, very long time. The next (and last) letter he ever sent her mentions Beatrice’s “pregnancy”, which means she probably received it after she left the island and married Bertrand. Plus, Jacques had actually forbidden Lemony to contact Beatrice while he was on the run:

You must not communicate with B. at all, not even by telegram or carrier pigeon.[The un-Authorized Autobiography, p.97]

As my pursuers scurriedaround the party, trying to guess which guest was me, I slipped out to theveranda and gave her the message I’d been trying to give her for fifteen longand lonely years. “Beatrice,” I cried, just as the scorpions spottedme, “Count Olaf is–”[The Austere Academy, Chapter Eleven]

She didn’t get any news from Lemony for a very long time and after a while it was psychologically easier to assume he was dead.

[snicketsleuth]

(PT. 1) Hello, Sleuth! Your theories are the best! I have a theory that could be true. In the Austere Academy, the Quagmires found a newspaper article that said Olaf threw or tried to throw a rich widow off a cliff. This kind of sounds familiar… Could this widow be Aunt Josephine? She was a widow, she was believed by everyone other than the Baudelaires to be thrown off of a cliff or threw herself off of a cliff, and since a lot of VFD’s members had fortunes,

I copied the second part of your question below:

(PT 2) she could have had a fortune that she just didn’t want to access because it reminded her of her past. Perhaps the Daily Punctilio reported on this and got some of the details wrong. What do you think? Could my theory be plausible?

Hello again, @detectivefernald! It’s great to hear from you.

Although there are certainly similarities in the two cases, I don’t think these articles refer to the same events:

“And then in the Verona Daily News,”Duncan said, “there was a man who hadthrown a rich widow off of a cliff. He had atattoo of an eye on his ankle, but he hadeluded authorities. And then we found anewspaper from your hometown that said—”[The Austere Academy, Chapter Ten]

The article was not published in the Daily Punctillo, which is the only newspapers from Josephine Anwhistle’s area likely to report on the issue of her death. Besides, the alteration of facts would be way out there even by the Daily Punctillo’s standards.

Although one could argue that once something is published in the Daily Punctillo, the other newspapers propagate the inaccuracies by commenting on its articles. This sadly also happens in real life. Online journalism has become a horrific parody of “Chinese Whispers”. So maybe the Daily Punctillo reported Josephine Anwhistle’s death incorrectly and then the Verona Daily News propagated this intel with even less accuracy.

[snicketsleuth]

In THH, why does the Daily Punctilio still pin the Baudelaires as murderers? The citizens of VFD saw Count Olaf and Esme Squalor escaping, so why was Count Olaf declared dead and Baudelaires murderers?

By the time the citizens of V.F.D. realized Olaf was alive, the fateful edition of the Daily Punctillo had already pinned them as murderers. We also see that they were more concerned about healing the injured crow than arresting Olaf, Esme, or the Baudelaire orphans. It was too late to do anything, the rumor had spread.

There’s also an important confusion about Count Olaf and Count Omar which may explain why some people still believed that Jacques’ corpse could still count as evidence of the Baudelaire orphans’ guilt. But Snicket also mentions some citizens of V.F.D. being present at the Hotel Denouement just before the big trial, so it’s possible the volunteers brought them there to testify that Olaf wasn’t really dead.