The Hostile Hospital: An Overview

[Trish, IT]

Thoughts?

[Trish, IT]

What are you guys thinking about with V.F.D. (the real and the one the Baudelaires encounter) and the more drama that's surrounding the fire and their lives? Poor Baudelaires... Snicket is getting hardcore about the darkness now... It really does feel like a series of unfortunate events with this book...

[Colleen]

I didn't expect Olaf to frame them as arsonists. I think it makes his plan complete. He can be all "it was them all along! They burnt down that hospital! Who burns down hospitals?!"

I thought the Volunteers Fighting Disease were an odd bunch. I don't know what I think about them.

The novel are getting really dark. I think it supports my idea that they are really written for adults.

[Trish, IT]

Olaf gets really lucky. Like, really lucky. Thinking about that makes me think of how the Baudelaires never really win in any of the books. I wonder if maybe Lemony Snicket is trying to tell readers (because I definitely agree on the adult theory) that we don't always win in life. Maybe our circumstances aren't as drastic as the Baudelaires, but the good guys don't always win and sometimes being together is the only "win" we'll get. More of a reality-check for younger readers, but an assurance to older readers.

I'm not really sure how I feel about the Volunteers Fighting Disease either... I like that they weren't influenced by the newspapers and didn't judge the Baudelaires, but I was irritated how naively they thought. Must really show how much less optimistic I am than I was when I was younger, but their overwhelming positiveness believing that a smile could cure better than medicine would've annoyed me if they had approached me in real life. I guess maybe because I think more realistically now? Of course positive energy will help, but relying solely on that and not on modern medicine is just... eh. Also, I have a good feeling if they had read the papers, they probably would have believed them, just based on the rest of the people in the series. But they were an interesting group, I wouldn't mind seeing them again maybe.

[Colleen]

I think that's a really good cometary on the series. Reminding us that it's okay to lose or teach us that we do lose sometimes and that's okay.

Yeah, it really bothered me when the sick people asked for water and pain killers and they said that they didn't have time because they had to go sing to everyone else in the hospital. It just seemed really irresponsible. I also really want to know where all the nurses in the hospital are if they aren't getting water to people and giving them their painkillers.