List of Prufrock Preparatory School Staff
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In the A Series of Unfortunate Events book The Austere Academy, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire attend Prufrock Prepatory School, which employs teachers and other staff.
Contents |
[edit] Vice Principal Nero
| A Series of Unfortunate Events character | |
 |
|
| Vice Principal Nero | |
|---|---|
| Gender | Male |
| Hair color | Novel: Unknown Illustrations: Titian |
| Age | Unknown |
| Film actor | None |
| 1st appearance | The Austere Academy |
| V.F.D. alliance | Unknown |
Vice Principal Nero is the rude and incompetent vice principal of Prufrock Preparatory School in The Austere Academy. He is both named and patterned after Emperor Nero, as he is fixated on his violin and refuses to acknowledge the perils to the community he is supposed to protect.
When the Baudelaire orphans are sent to Prufrock Preparatory School, they find themselves under the thumb of the delusional Vice Principal Nero. He is both extremely strict and completely oblivious to reality; for example, he makes Sunny (a baby) his secretary. Although he is a terrible violinist, he nevertheless forces every student to attend nightly six-hour concerts where he plays his own compositions.
Nero dresses in a gaudy suit with a snail-patterned tie. In The Austere Academy, his hair is tied into four pigtails, but by The Penultimate Peril, they have grown into four long, greasy braids that dangle behind him.
Nero often mimics what others have just said in a high, mocking tone. He is thoroughly unpleasant to everyone, both his pupils and staff, though the pupils run afoul of his endless rules. Nero has numerous methods of unfair punishment. Those who fail to attend his nightly concerts must buy him a bag of candy and watch him eat it. Other punishments involve the removal of silverware at mealtimes, and the loss of a cup (causing the beverage to be poured directly onto the meal tray.)
Nero is neither a good principal nor a good employer. When Sunny Baudelaire is forced to be his secretary, she is made to manufacture her own staples using her teeth. Moreover, after the Baudelaires unmask Count Olaf, Nero still maintains that Olaf is Coach Genghis, failing in his duties as guardian as well.
Nero re-appears in The Penultimate Peril when he, along with Mr. Remora and Mrs. Bass, are invited to Esmé Squalor's cocktail party. Nero is never stated to be part of either side of the V.F.D schism, but when asked a coded V.F.D phrase - "I didn't realise this was a sad occasion" - in The Penultimate Peril, Nero does not appear to understand. If Nero is in V.F.D., however, he is likely on the fire-starting side; during The Penultimate Peril, he sets a glass down without using a coaster, something only a villainous person would do. At the end of the book, a large fire consumes the hotel with Nero inside it, and it is unknown whether he survived the fire.
| Preceded by Sir (The Miserable Mill) |
Guardian of Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire | Succeeded by Esmé Squalor and Jerome Squalor (The Ersatz Elevator) |
[edit] Mr. Remora
Mr. Remora is a teacher at Prufrock Preparatory School. He loves bananas and is constantly seen eating one, smearing banana pulp on his mustache. In his class, students are forced to listen to very tiresome (but short) stories he dictates, after which he gives examinations on various objective aspects of the stories. Lemony Snicket also reveals that Mr. Remora later retired from his teaching job because he choked on a banana.
Mr. Remora reappears in The Penultimate Peril with his fellow teachers, having been invited to a cocktail party, and makes a brief reference to running from the law (possibly a reference to Mrs. Bass's bank robbery). Hal also tries to communicate with him in VFD code, however, he fails to understand, meaning that he is probably not part of VFD. It is not known whether he survived the fire at Hotel Denouement.
[edit] Mrs. Bass
Mrs. Bass is Klaus Baudelaire's teacher in The Austere Academy. She is obssesed with measuring in metric and all of her lessons are on measuring certain items. She reappears in The Penultimate Peril, in which it is mentioned that she is a bank robber. It is unknown whether she survives the fire which destroys the Hotel Denouement. It is also mentioned in The Austere Academy that the school that she taught at would be eventually closed because she robbed a bank.
[edit] Coach Genghis (Count Olaf)
Count Olaf disguises himself as a physical education teacher, Coach Genghis. The Baudelaires immediately recognize him as Count Olaf in disguise, but pretend not to recognize him.
Olaf, under the excuse that orphans have stronger legs, makes them paint a circle, and then run "Special Orphan Running Exercises" (S.O.R.E.) laps around the luminous circle at night, for nine days. Olaf's plan was to make them so tired that they could not get their work done and be kicked out of school.
[edit] Cafeteria Workers
The White-Faced Women, associates of Count Olaf, disguise themselves as cafeteria workers in The Austere Academy. They help kidnap Isadora and Duncan Quagmire.
[edit] Librarian
There is a mysterious librarian character — referred to in Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorised Autobiography — who wears an unusual assortment of clothes and asks a question from the book Ramona Quimby, Age 8, seemingly as a way to identify other V.F.D. members.
(a.k.a. Daniel Handler)
Illustrated by Brett Helquist
