Sugar bowl (A Series of Unfortunate Events)
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| A Series of Unfortunate Events entities | |
| The Sugar Bowl | |
|---|---|
| Film portrayal | None |
| First mentioned | The Hostile Hospital (indirectly mentioned in The Ersatz Elevator) |
| Possessed by | Unknown (although implied to be in the possession of Lemony Snicket) |
The Sugar Bowl (occasionally known as the "Vessel For Disaccharides") is a mysterious plot device from A Series of Unfortunate Events.
It was first mentioned by name in The Hostile Hospital in which Lemony Snicket ponders whether it was necessary to have stolen it from Esmé Squalor. It is indirectly mentioned in The Ersatz Elevator by Esmé. In Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, it becomes apparent that it contains an object of great power or danger; it is also possible that the sugar bowl contains an unknown object that has the power to overthrow V.F.D. enemies when acquired. There are many mentions of the sugar bowl and both sides of V.F.D. seem to be pursuing it; the Baudelaire orphans are eventually caught up in the search, although they have no idea why the bowl is so important.
Contents |
[edit] History
Lemony Snicket's narration has been pivotal in exploring the sugar bowl's relevance to the overall plot. Where the sugar bowl came from and when an item of importance was hidden in it is unclear; however, it is generally agreed that the earliest point in its significant history is referred to in The Penultimate Peril and The Hostile Hospital. In the former, Esmé Squalor claims that Beatrice stole the sugar bowl from her, but in the latter, Lemony Snicket claims that he stole the sugar bowl from Esmé. Clues in these books indicate that Beatrice was at a tea party held by Esmé when the sugar bowl was taken from her, and Esmé may have then mistakenly deduced that Beatrice was the thief. Alternatively, Lemony and Beatrice may have worked together to steal the sugar bowl, as 13 Shocking Secrets You'll Wish You Never Knew About Lemony Snicket states that Lemony helped Beatrice commit a serious crime shortly before her death; however, this may refer to an entirely different crime.
In The Slippery Slope, Lemony Snicket mentions in a letter to his sister that her "suggestion...that a tea set would be a handy place to hide anything important and small...has turned out to be correct." A sugar bowl is one of the parts of a tea set. Later in the book, Violet Baudelaire notes that a tea set used by Count Olaf and Esmé Squalor is missing an item, implied to be a sugar bowl.
It is also mentioned in The Dismal Dinner that a sugar bowl was passed around at the Baudelaire parents' fourth-to-last dinner party, but it is unclear whether this is the same sugar bowl that was stolen from Esmé.
At some point, the sugar bowl was taken to the V.F.D. headquarters in the Mortmain Mountains. At a point prior to The Slippery Slope, the man with a beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard burnt down the headquarters but were unable to recover the sugar bowl; Lemony Snicket states in the narration that a brave volunteer threw the bowl out the window into the Stricken Stream, knowing it would be swept away and be saved from the villains.
In The Grim Grotto, Klaus Baudelaire and Captain Widdershins believed it to have washed into the Gorgonian Grotto, but when the grotto was explored, the bowl was not there; the narration implies that the bowl had been removed quite some time before. It is here that the Baudelaires are told that the sugar bowl itself is not important; it is its contents that matter.
In The Penultimate Peril, the sugar bowl was brought to the Hotel Denouement by V.F.D. crows. The plan, on the villains' part, was to capture it by harpooning the crows, but due to the quick actions of Dewey Denouement, a plan was put in place to prevent the villains from securing it. The volunteers and villains originally thought it had fallen into the laundry room, but the Baudelaires later conclude that the sugar bowl had fallen into the pond. However, in a twist, Snicket implies that the bowl was retrieved from the pond and carried away by taxi shortly before the destruction of the hotel, and that this taxi driver was possibly himself. The book's theme of ambiguity makes it unclear whether or not this was the sugar bowl, though, or whether the driver of the taxi was indeed Lemony Snicket; Snicket's narration merely states that the driver took with him a "small item... still damp from its hiding place", and makes several knowledgeable statements linking the driver to himself. As a result, it is arguable that the bowl remains on the bed of the hotel pond.
[edit] Multiple sugar bowls?
While the main books in A Series of Unfortunate Events refer to only one sugar bowl, Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography implies that there are several, although whether they have any significance or are as important as the key sugar bowl is debateable.
Early on in the book, a transcript of a V.F.D. meeting mentions "the sugar bowl secret" alongside several V.F.D. Codes, implying that the sugar bowl's significance is taught in the organisation; this may involve usage of multiple sugar bowls, although it could simply refer to the single sugar bowl from the main series.
In The Unauthorized Autobiography, on pages 84 through 85, there is a letter from the Vineyard of Fragrant Drapes to Lemony Snicket, congratulating him on his upcoming wedding there to Beatrice; this letter mentions that "the sugar bowls will all be in place". Directly after, there is a very similar message to Jerome Squalor congratulating him on his upcoming wedding there to Esmé Squalor, but in this letter all references to V.F.D. have been removed; it also states that the sugar bowls Esmé requested could not be supplied. Notably, the former wedding did not take place, although the latter did, so presumably no sugar bowls were ultimately displayed at the vineyard.
A list of objects in the V.F.D. disguise kit in the same book adds Optional: Sugar Bowl. This implies that the sugar bowl is commonly used in disguising oneself or otherwise concealing things.
The menu of the Veritable French Diner includes sugar bowls with the breakfast and lunch specials, but these may not be related to the sugar bowl significant in the main series; alternatively, they may be a coded reference indicating that the restaurant is significant to the V.F.D. organisation (with which it shares its initials).
[edit] Contents
At the conclusion of the final book in the series, The End, it is still not known what has happened to the sugar bowl or why it is so important; the bowl did not appear in the final book and was of little importance to the book's plot.
The Slippery Slope indicates that the sugar bowl contains something that proves Lemony Snicket innocent of arsons committed by Count Olaf; The Penultimate Peril implies that Lemony Snicket has gained possession of the bowl. If this is the case, Snicket may have gone on to use the sugar bowl to clear his name; The Beatrice Letters reinforces this, as by the time its later segments take place, Snicket is apparently able to publicly rent an office and have mail delivered there, something he would be unable to do as a wanted fugitive.
Esmé Squalor, when confronting the Baudelaires, Dewey Denouement and their associates in The Penultimate Peril, emphasized the difficulty of finding a container that could hold it [the sugar bowl's contents] safely, securely, and attractively, and stated many lives were lost in the quest to find it; she also states that it means very much to the Baudelaires and the Snickets. However, it is unclear where she is referring to the sugar bowl and where to its contents. This statement implies that the bowl already held its crucial contents when she possessed it, but earlier references indicate that the bowl was stolen from her in order to hide things within it.
It is hinted at in The End that the bowl may contain horseradish, as a note by the Baudelaire parents written on the island known as Olaf-Land refers to hiding a small quantity of horseradish (or another Medusoid Mycelium cure) in a "vess[el]"; however, this explanation would contradict earlier references to the contents of the sugar bowl, and would not explain why the bowl is so important to V.F.D. and the villains, since cures for the Mycelium are not in short supply (V.F.D. even supports a factory that produces such a cure). In The Penultimate Peril, Dewey Denouement says that Olaf "would not dare" unleash the Medusoid Mycelium if Dewey possessed the sugar bowl; while this could support the notion that the sugar bowl contains a cure for the fungus's poison, rendering futile any hostile usage of the fungus, it could also refer to any item that Olaf is particularly interested in seizing, or an item which the fungus would destroy against Olaf's own wishes. In addition, Count Olaf and his associates were searching for the sugar bowl during and prior to The Slippery Slope, but at the time, the Medusoid Mycelium was thought by them to have been long since destroyed; thus they would have no use for an antidote.
Similarly, if such an antidote were hidden in the sugar bowl by the Baudelaire parents when they were on the island, this confuses the timing of when and why the sugar bowl was stolen from Esmé Squalor; Esmé seems to have little use for a sugar bowl containing horseradish. She claims that the sugar bowl belonged to her in the first place, so the sugar bowl must have been stolen from Esmé in order to use it as a hiding place for an item. However, as there is no indication that Esmé and her sugar bowl ever set foot on the island of Olaf-Land, the bowl would have to have been stolen either before the Baudelaire parents went to the island, at which point they would have no use for it, or after they left, in which case the antidote would have been hidden in a different vessel entirely while on the island. In addition, since Lemony Snicket claims to have stolen the sugar bowl, it is unclear how he could have known that the Baudelaires needed it, and The Beatrice Letters implies that Lemony believed them dead during their time on the island.
An explanation for the conflicting evidence on the sugar bowl's contents may be that the sugar bowl contained multiple items of value to different individuals, which were placed within the bowl at different points in its history.
Finally, it is altogether possible that the sugar bowl is merely a MacGuffin plot device, meaning that the contents of it are actually completely irrelevant or possibly undecided by the author, and that its function is simply to be a much sought-after object that motivates characters and drives the story along.
[edit] Trivia
The Unauthorized Autobiography references (in obscured form) the book I Lost It at the Movies by Pauline Kael in the index entry for the sugar bowl; however, the link between the two is not explained.
