Tyler and B introduce themselves to the world and talk about their backgrounds with A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Check out the podcast on Itunes and other podcatchers on August 30th!
Tyler and B introduce themselves to the world and talk about their backgrounds with A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Check out the podcast on Itunes and other podcatchers on August 30th!
Fun as always 🙂
“The Austere Academy” is one of my favorites in the series — to a large extent, because it’s the first to start breaking away from the formula that the first few books laid out. It’s the first to lay down *new* recurring characters, *new* reasons to be invested in the books.
And it really *does* feel like a break from formula. You keep mentioning the Scooby Doo endings – but here, the villain flips off the light, and drives away cackling with Velma tied up in the trunk. Whew!
Two questions I’d love to hear you discuss on the show:
1. ASoUE is often viewed as dark or grim; you’ve mentioned this many times. Do you think it’s genuinely darker than other comparable children’s literature? Where does it stand compared to, say, Roald Dahl, Harry Potter, or Charlotte’s Web?
2. One of the things I keep noticing in your podcast is that you’ll frequently ask “How is it possible that–?”. Things like “How did these people even *get* these jobs they’re incompetent at,” or “How is it even possible to duel against a sword with your teeth,” or “How did Count Olaf get in there without having a background check run?”
Now, this might sound like a funny question but: when you ask these, are you *actually* looking for some kind of plausible, rational, in-story answer that could resolve the absurdity? Are you literally trying to piece together the details? Or is this a different way of saying something like “Isn’t it absurd how–“? Or something else? What’s going through your head, when you ask “How could such a ridiculous thing be possible” about A Series of Unfortunate Events? There’s something just a little weird to me about it, which is why I’d be fascinated to hear you hypercogitate about precisely what you mean and what you’re thinking about with those 🙂
We’ll definitely address these on the show once I can talk with B, but I feel like the fun of absurd narratives has always been trying to make some sense out of them. Whether my headcannon is that the person of indeterminate gender is a space alien or just that everything in-universe is silly, that’s always been something I have fun with. Thanks for the questions!
-Tyler