#opera night

[aretis]

Couple at the opera!!

[ahmedmsalah]

📍Cairo Opera House

Ig: Ahmedmoatazsalah

[meaniehearts]

the phantom of the opera is there, inside my mind

[terrazaurio]

They're serving at the opera night.

Amadeo and Lira now get along for some reason yipee

[and-a-stolen-object]

You know what we need, well I need anyway...

A series or at least a backstory on the schism as it happened. Like I kinda wanna know the ins and outs of it. Like how it affected the Snickets and the others and all that. I wanna know more about the sugar bowl too and the fortunes all these volunteers seem to have. I need this.

Like a series on their friendship and relationships and the events leading up to the opera night and those that followed. So VFD, opera night, schism, masked ball.

I just want that to be a series. (Not to pressure)

ASOUE before the events - the new Netflix’s original (please) 👉👈

[first-impression-s]

This was supposed to be a whole scene of the opera night but I’m not going to finish it so just take Kit.

[visual-findings-disclosure]

City’s Opera after the fire that occurred after a certain opera night, from City’s Archives. Date unknown.

[kitsnicket]

I was discussing the show today with someone who had only watched it and had never read the books. They were wondering why Olaf wasn’t mad at esme for throwing poison darts (I know the one that kills his dad was thrown by Beatrice but still) and that esme started the dart throwing in the first place. It also doesn’t make sense because in the previous scene Olaf is happily getting along with everyone. And and I get that his dad was killed but anyone there could see it was not intentional. I under

stand him still being angry but to do a complete 180 like that just felt like bad writing and these people he has known for his entire life presumably. So to be able to want to kill them all so easily is just?? And esme is pretty much the same like she goes from talking about how great Beatrice is and then is suddenly ready to kill her so easily? And I get that this entire series is melodramatic but I guess I subscribe to theory that Olaf was probably always a jerk but the death of his parents is what pushed him over. The idea of him just becoming evil suddenly feels lazy. And the kit of it all. The fact that the writers were so afraid to make Kit unlikable is so obvious here. (I was explaining to my friend all the differences between the book and the show) When you explain the differences to someone out loud it almost feels like they are completely different characters. Like explaining that in the book kit orchestrated the death of Olaf’s parents and in the show the opposite happens basically. And they were just like ‘so she’s a completely different character then.’ And I’m like yeah. And her relationship with Olaf felt really one sided. In the book kit is the one that touches his ankle and she even tries to explain to the Baudelaires that yes Olaf is evil but there are people who are worse. She almost defends him in a way. But in the show it’s like no pure innocent Kit would have never loved Olaf. I could keep going but I’m sorry I just have a lot of feelings.

There’s a lot to unpack here so sorry in advance for anything that reads incoherently or jumps around a lot lol. This is the problem you run into when you change the writing and try to fill in narrative questions that were left answered. You’re right: in the Netflix Olaf should be mad at Esmé for reacting as she did. I know you’ve read the books so you know all of what im about to say but we never learn exactly how the night transpired. We know Beatrice, Bertrand, Lemony, Kit, Esmé, Olaf, and Olaf's parent(s) were all there and we know that his parents(or singular parent--we dont know if he had both parents alive at this point) were killed by poison darts. We also know that Esmé seemed to be trying to stop their plan as Kit mentions that she gave the Baudelaires the box of poison darts before Esmé could catch her. If they had left the opera night as it was in the books, of course Olaf wouldn’t be mad at Esme who was (seemingly) trying to stop the assassination by catching Kit before she could hand over the poison darts. The show also makes it so the opera night mission was to take the sugar bowl. In the books I dont remember the sugar bowl even being mentioned in conjunction with the opera night-- the mission seemed to be to assassinate Olaf's parents for...whatever reason. 

Another instance of filling in gaps is showing Olaf’s relationship with K, L, B, and E. Again in the books we’re not totally aware of the relationship between the characters at this time(unless its hinted at in TUA and im just forgetting lol). Judging by the fact that K was avoiding E, we can assume that E and O were already in, or beginning to, schism. That justifies O’s reaction because his parents murder was the straw that broke the camel’s back or gave him even more of a reason to divorce himself from VFD and his ex-friends. I agree with you that the 180 Netflix!Olaf does seems extreme but, at the same time, he did watch his parents murdered by people he thought of as close friends. This argument would’ve been even stronger if Netflix!Kit had more of a role in the opera scene instead of just sitting there. Because then not only did his friends murder his parents but his girlfriend helped.

Netflix!Kit’s writing and characterization is lazy-- plain and simple. She’s clueless during the opera scene and does absolutely nothing besides give a weak attempt at getting everyone to talk things out because that’s definitely gonna work. They shied away from Kit’s grey morality and pretty much ignored her distraughtness and heavily implied depression-- just having her say “im distraught” does not work unless her character actually acts distraught. They ignored all these things that made Kit dynamic, interesting, and human and Instead made her into a typical badass spy. It’s a problem when a character can be replaced by any other character and in this case Kit could’ve been replaced by Jacquelyn. Their characters were that similar. I will say that in the show I don’t think they made the Olaf x Kit relationship one sided. They’re shown to be pretty in love during the opera flashback. And in the books Kit does call him wicked and says that she won’t forgive him. IMO, Netflix!Kit during The End was the most like Book!Kit.

The opera night and the sugar bowl reveal are two perfect examples of why some unanswered Snicketverse questions are better-left unanswered. Their answering ultimately weakens characterization and/or plot.