Count Olaf's associates
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| A Series of Unfortunate Events character | |
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| Bald Man | |
|---|---|
| Gender | Male |
| Hair color | Bald |
| Age | Unknown (deceased) |
| Film actor | Luis Guzmán |
| First appearance | The Bad Beginning |
In the book series by Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Count Olaf originally had ten people in his theater troupe. Although they acted in plays, they also helped him with evil schemes. In the later books of the series, each associate left or was killed, one by one, starting with the person of indeterminate gender and ending with the hook-handed man.
Contents |
[edit] Original troupe
[edit] Count Olaf
[edit] Fernald, the Hook-Handed Man
[edit] The Bald Man with the Long Nose
The Bald Man with the Long Nose (and rarely Bald Headed Man) is one of Olaf's original troupe. One confusion is that in The Bad Beginning, one member of the troupe is listed as the Wart-Faced Man. This character was never mentioned again, but some fans believe that this is the Bald Headed Man, who was described on the audiobook's accompanying song as being "covered with warts". His alias was Flacutono, an anagram of Count Olaf.
The Bald Headed Man helped with many of Count Olaf's schemes. In The Miserable Mill, wearing a white, curly wig and a surgical mask, he disguised himself as Foreman Flacutono, the foreman at Lucky Smells Lumbermill. He tripped Klaus Baudelaire several times, causing Klaus' glasses to break. The plan continued, as Klaus was then hypnotised at the optometrist's office where Count Olaf and his associate Dr. Orwell were working. His identity was revealed at the end of the book when he fled the mill with Count Olaf.
When Klaus said that he found the person of indeterminate gender the scariest, Violet stated that she found the bald man the scariest, possibly because of the threat he gave her in The Bad Beginning.
There isn't another appearance of the Bald Headed Man until The Hostile Hospital. In this book, diguised in a costume similar to his disguise The Miserable Mill, he calls himself Doctor Flacutono. He and Count Olaf's other associates attmept to perform the world's first cranioectomy (head removal) on Violet Baudelaire, with the intention of her death being ruled an accident, but she is saved by her siblings when they stall the surgery.
The Bald Headed Man met his end in The Carnivorous Carnival, when he fell into the carnival's lion pit, and devoured by the lions along with Madame Lulu.
[edit] The Wart Faced Man
The Wart Faced Man is mysterious associate made his first and only appearance in The Bad Beginning. His job was to shut down the stage lights so Olaf and the troupe could escape. It is speculated that he may be the Bald Man with the Long Nose, or the man with pimples all over his face who appeared in The Carnivorous Carnival. If he is the Bald Headed Man, he will definitely never appear again, due to the Bald Headed Man's death in the The Carnivorous Carnival. It is possible that he was there the whole time they just didn't speak to him or mention him.At the end of the book it states that he did in fact escape with Count Olaf.
[edit] Short Haired Woman
The Short Haired Woman only appeared in The Bad Beginning. Her only role was to activate the curtain for The Marvelous Marriage and to attend to Olaf's dinner party. It is unknown if she escapes with Count Olaf or not so she could possibly just be a theater stage hand.
[edit] Three Short Men
The Three Short Men made their first and only appearance in The Bad Beginning. Their only role in the story was to attend to Count Olaf's dinner party and to put the settings on the stage in The Marvelous Marriage. It never states that they escape with Olaf or not, so like the Short Haired Woman, they could possibly just be stagehands.
[edit] The Person of Indeterminate Gender
| A Series of Unfortunate Events character | |
 |
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| Person of Indeterminate Gender | |
|---|---|
| Gender | Unknown |
| Hair color | Novel: Unknown
Illustrations: Blonde Film: Brown |
| Age | Adult (deceased) |
| Film actor | Craig Ferguson |
| First appearance | The Bad Beginning |
The Person of Indeterminate Gender is a henchperson of the villain Count Olaf. This person is extremely obese and resembles neither a man nor a woman. Both the narrator and the characters talk about this person using phrases such as "he or she", "the massive creature", "it", and "the big one". Even Olaf's other henchmen use such language, which suggests that even they are unsure about the person's gender. The author usually describes him or her as 'the overweight accomplice'.
He or she is often guarding something for Count Olaf, due to his or her size, such as the tower where Sunny is kept in The Bad Beginning, and the keys to the sailboats in The Wide Window. He or she has been shown to have the stength to swing Violet over his or her shoulder with one hand. In the books, he or she is often described as having a blank expression, making it even more difficult to distinguish his or her gender.
The Baudelaire children never hear this person speak, even when he or she is spoken to by others. It is not known whether this person remains silent by choice, or is unable to speak. However, he or she obviously has some means of communication as it informs Count Olaf, disguised as Captain Sham, that the Baudelaires stole the sailboat in The Wide Window. They do hear the Person of Indeterminate Gender laugh in The Hostile Hospital. This is described as "an odd laugh that sounded like a squeal and a howl at the same time." The character speaks a few times in the film, with a slight Scottish accent. However, in the film version of the story, he or she is a very minor character, only appearing at Olaf's dinner party and at the wedding scene, where he or she wears half a bridesmaid gown sewn to half a tuxedo.
Sunny Baudelaire refers to the person as "Orlando" at one point, a literary allusion to the Virginia Woolf novel, Orlando: A Biography, whose hero is a man who turns into a woman. Orlando is based on Vita Sackville-West, briefly Woolf's lover. In the film version of the story, the Person of Indeterminate Gender is referred to as "Liza", but it is not known whether this name was given by the author or by the director. In the books, the character is never identified by name.
In The Hostile Hospital, his or her final appearance, he or she is seen as one of Count Olaf's henchpeople, disguised as a guard at Heimlich Hospital, first seen guarding a door where two more of Olaf's associates were hidden. This person does not speak even with his or her co-workers, as he or she does not speak to Esmé or Klaus and Sunny, whom he or she thinks are the two white-faced women. The character is not seen again after this until the final scene. It is the only one absent amongst Olaf's troupe that is trying to capture the Baudelaires in the Operating Theatre, but as they escape, they whiz past him or her. He or she sees them and roars and chases after them, the second and last sound it is heard to make. The Baudelaires manage to escape from inside a closet, leaving the person inside as the hospital burns to the ground, where her or she most likely perishes. This marked the first death of one of Olaf's colleagues. Whilst the hook-handed man and the bald man show regret at the loss of this person, Olaf claims that he or she was a fool and was not worth waiting around for.
[edit] The White-Faced Women
| A Series of Unfortunate Events character | |
 |
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| White-Faced Women | |
|---|---|
| Gender | Female |
| Hair color | Red and grey in book
Brown and black in film |
| Age | Unknown |
| Film actor | Jennifer Coolidge and Jane Adams |
| First appearance | The Bad Beginning |
The Two White-Faced Women are original members of Count Olaf's theatre troupe. Not much is actually known about them, other than the fact that they had another sibling, who died in a fire. The women's most distinguishing feature is they always put white makeup on their face. They have stated that they consider their makeup freakish, but it is not said why they still put it on. Their aliases are Flo and Tocuna, which, if combined, are an anagram of Count Olaf.
The women helped with Count Olaf's scheme in The Austere Academy. Disguised as two cafeteria workers with metal masks, they watched the Baudelaires and Duncan and Isadora Quagmire during the book. At the end, they forced the Quagmires into Count Olaf's automobile and drove away with them.
In The Hostile Hospital, they came into Violet Baudelaire's cranioectomy late, so Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire were mistaken for the two white-faced woman before they arrived. Shortly after the real White-Faced Women arrived, the Baudelaires ran to escape all of Count Olaf's associates in the operating theatre.
The women eventually got tired with Olaf's continuous treachery and left him in The Slippery Slope. The narrator states that he does not know what happened to the women after they walked away in the mountains, despite countless days of research, though there are many rumours about their fate.
[edit] Later associates
[edit] Georgina Orwell
| A Series of Unfortunate Events character | |
| Dr. Georgina Orwell | |
|---|---|
| Gender | Female |
| Hair color | Blonde |
| Age | Adult (deceased) |
| Film actor | None |
| First appearance | The Miserable Mill |
| V.F.D. alliance | Villain |
Dr. Orwell is an optometrist living in the totally dreadful town of Paltryville. In The Miserable Mill, Dr. Orwell is really a hypnotist and hypnotizes Klaus Baudelaire.
In the same novel, she and Sunny Baudelaire have a swordfight in which Orwell uses a sword and Sunny her four sharp teeth. Dr. Orwell is killed when she is backed into a scrolling sawblade used for cutting wood.
Dr. Orwell's full name is Georgina Orwell, based on that of author George Orwell.
She may also have been a former member of V.F.D., as the optometrist disguise described in Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography matches her appearance.
[edit] Esmé Squalor
[edit] Carmelita Spats
[edit] Hugo the Hunchback
| A Series of Unfortunate Events character | |
 |
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| Hugo | |
|---|---|
| Gender | Male |
| Age | Adult (no further details) |
| Film actor | None |
| First appearance | The Carnivorous Carnival |
Hugo, a hunchback, first appears in The Carnivorous Carnival. He is most likely named after Victor Hugo, the author of the well known book Hunchback of Notre Dame.
When the Baudelaires are running from the authorities, for crimes they did not commit, they disguise themselves as freaks. Violet and Klaus disguise themseveles as a two-headed freak in the Caligari Carnival, while Sunny is Chabo the wolf baby. They then find themselves working with Hugo, Colette, and Kevin. At the end of The Carnivorous Carnival, Hugo is bribed by Count Olaf and Esmé Squalor to join their evil troupe. Hugo also appears in The Slippery Slope as a very minor character.
Hugo the Hunchback appears again in The Penultimate Peril, disguised as an attendant in Hotel Denouement as part of one of Count Olaf's schemes. It is unknown whether he survived the fire that consumed the hotel.
[edit] Colette the Contortionist
| A Series of Unfortunate Events character | |
| Colette | |
|---|---|
| Gender | Female |
| Hair color | (Brunette) Long, curly |
| Age | Adult (no further details) |
| Film actor | None |
| First appearance | The Carnivorous Carnival |
Colette is a contortionist. She first appears in The Carnivorous Carnival, in which she is employed at the Caligari Carnival in the House of Freaks.
When Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire were running from the authorities, for crimes they had not committed, the three children disguised themselves as freaks. This resulted in working with Colette and her co-workers. They lived in a caravan at the carnival with their colleagues and fellow freaks, Hugo, a hunchback and Kevin, who is ambidextrous. At the end of The Carnivorous Carnival, Colette, Hugo, and Kevin joined Count Olaf's associates.
Colette appears again as a minor character in The Slippery Slope and The Penultimate Peril. In The Penultimate Peril, she diguises herself as a chemist to help with Count Olaf's latest scheme. Whether she survives the fire in Hotel Denouement is unknown.
[edit] Kevin
| A Series of Unfortunate Events character | |
| Kevin | |
|---|---|
| Gender | Male |
| Age | Adult (no further details) |
| Film actor | none |
| First appearance | The Carnivorous Carnival |
Kevin is first seen in The Carnivorous Carnival as a member of Madame Lulu's freak show. His talent is that he is ambidextrous. He is very self-conscious about his ambidexterity, which seems to be utterly ridiculous. Kevin agrees to join Count Olaf's troupe after the carnival is burned down. In the The Penultimate Peril, Kevin is disguised as a laundry maid in Hotel Denouement. It is unknown whether he survived the fire.
[edit] The Man With a Beard but No Hair and the Woman With Hair but No Beard
| A Series of Unfortunate Events character | |
| The Man With a Beard but No Hair
and the Woman With Hair but No Beard |
|
|---|---|
| Gender | Male and Female (respectively) |
| Hair color | Unknown |
| Age | Adult (no further details)(presumably dead) |
| Film actor | None |
| First appearance | The Slippery Slope |
| V.F.D. alliance | Villain side of the schism |
The Man With a Beard but No Hair and the Woman With Hair but No Beard are two fictional villainous judges first appearing in The Slippery Slope. The Man with a Beard but No Hair and the Woman with Hair but No Beard are said to have an "aura of menace", and even intimidate Count Olaf. They are so terrifying that Lemony Snicket is afraid to so much as mention their names. They are first seen by the Baudelaires at the peak of Mount Fraught. They burned down V.F.D. headquarters and came to see Olaf. They had captured and retrained the V.F.D. Eagles, which obey their orders and even carry the sinister pair with them when they fly.
In The Penultimate Peril, it was revealed that the pair of them were two of the judges on the High Court(aside from Justice Strauss), and have been pretending to be interested in the Baudelaire case so they could get all the information Justice Strauss has about the children. They then tell Count Olaf everything they know to help him. At the end of The Penultimate Peril, a large fire consums the Hotel Denouement and destroyed it while the two villains were inside, though it is unknown if they lived or died as they were not seen in The End.
