V.F.D.

V.F.D.
Volunteer Fire Department
A Series of Unfortunate Events
Motto "The world is quiet here"
First appearance The Austere Academy
Last appearance The End

V.F.D. is a secret organization within the book series A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. The purposes of the organization are never made clear, although the name of the organization is connected to various interpretations of the word "fire." V.F.D. members have been known to participate in various (and often unusual) academic pursuits, e.g., cryptography, disguise training, crime prevention, espionage, animal conditioning projects, and social activism. The organization's most known tenets include both extreme secrecy and dedication to the organization itself, with membership beginning from early childhood.

It has been implied that the organization's original purpose was to fight physical fires, and later developed into a mission to fight other, metaphorical fires, like evil and ignorance. Its motto is "the world is quiet here," reflecting its dedication to keeping the world quiet, in other words peaceful, knowledgeable and safe. Accordingly V.F.D. dedicates itself to collecting as much truthful information as possible in commonplace books, and compiling it all in various "safe places." All V.F.D. members have a tattoo of an eye on their left ankle.

At some point V.F.D. underwent a schism, dividing its members into volunteers and villains. Volunteers continue putting out fires, while villains start them, although it is emphasized that circumstances often force people to behave as their enemies would.

Contents

Background

V.F.D. was first mentioned in The Austere Academy when the Quagmire triplets, Duncan and Isadora Quagmire were researching Count Olaf. At the climax of the book, they reveal that they have discovered an important secret regarding V.F.D., but are kidnapped by Olaf before they can tell the Baudelaire orphans what they've discovered. The V.F.D. increases in prominence in subsequent volumes; the group is connected with the deaths of the Baudelaire and the Quagmire parents and the schemes of their enemy, Count Olaf. It eventually transpires that it is the name of a secret organization. The Slippery Slope suggests that V.F.D. stands for 'Volunteer Fire Department', among other things; in The End Lemony Snicket's narration confirms that 'Volunteer Fire Department' is indeed the correct meaning of the initials. In The Grim Grotto, it is revealed that while this was the origin of the organization, its members had many other interests. "V.F.D." is also used as an abbreviation for various terms and organizations related to the organization, which increases the confusion of outsiders regarding the purpose of the group.

According to Kit Snicket, it can be read to mean a group that actively starts fires (something of an allusion to the "firemen" in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451), which indeed happens when the group is split because of a schism. One group of Schismatics fights fires and the other half are arsonists. When the Schism occurred and exactly why it occurred is unknown, except that it was in the childhood of Kit Snicket and Dewey Denouement and that it appears that a line has been drawn between those who stop fires and those who start them. The members of the former are called "volunteers" and the members of the latter are called "villains". The "volunteers" often appear to be desperate, in that their situation seems to be one of dire straits. It is openly stated that the "villains" are growing more powerful and the "volunteers" weaker; however, the epilogue of the thirteenth and final book suggests that after the events therein, the "volunteer" half of the organization seems to have survived or recovered, while the "villain" half has returned to its former power, or possibly both sides have been fragmented.

The protagonists of the series (Violet Baudelaire, Klaus Baudelaire and Sunny Baudelaire) discover that their parents were members of this secret organization, as were many of the guardians they were placed with after their parents' death, along with various other people they encountered throughout the books.

Sugar bowl

Main article: Sugar bowl (A Series of Unfortunate Events)

A mysterious sugar bowl is of value to members on both sides of the schism, of which it is stated to be the cause and serves as a MacGuffin to drive the story in later books. Despite it and its contents being pursued by volunteers, villains, and the Baudelaires, its significance is never revealed and it does not appear in the final book of the series, although the books suggest that the sugar bowl contains an antidote for the fungi medusoid mycelium. The one hint to its true meaning is the remark, "it isn't the sugar bowl that's important, it's what's inside it". It said in The Slippery Slope that the sugar bowl was thrown out the window of the V.F.D. headquarters in the Mortmain Mountains (in Valley of Four Drafts) by one of the members (of V.F.D) into The Stricken Stream.

The Baudelaires' discoveries

  1. V.F.D. is first mentioned by Duncan Quagmire in The Austere Academy, when he tries to tell Klaus something terrible about Count Olaf's past, but can only manage to yell the organization's initials before he's driven away along with Isadora.
  2. Next, in The Ersatz Elevator, the Baudelaires discover a tunnel from 667 Dark Avenue (the home of Esmé and Jerome Squalor) to the Baudelaire mansion. Esmé is part of the V.F.D.'s fire-starting side, whereas Jerome became a part of the firefighting side sometime after the events in The Ersatz Elevator. Also, in the 'In Auction' the Baudelaires buy 'V.F.D.' but find out that it only stood for 'Very Fancy Doilies' and that this was not the V.F.D. they were looking to find (doilies are very briefly mentioned also in the twelfth book, when the author makes a vague reference to a family that has been scouring the globe for a terribly important doily).
  3. In The Vile Village, the Baudelaires are offered a home in a village known only as "V.F.D.". Thinking this may be related to the aforementioned secret, they arrive only to find it stands for Village of Fowl Devotees—not the V.F.D. which they seek, although while there they do meet a man named Jacques who appears to be a member of V.F.D.; among other things, he has an eye tattoo identical to the one which Count Olaf has. It is later revealed that all members of V.F.D., at least before a certain period in time, were tattooed with this symbol.
  4. In The Hostile Hospital, the Baudelaires meet a group of people who call themselves the Volunteers Fighting Disease, which is, like the Village of Fowl Devotees, not connected to the group they seek. The trio later discover that one person did survive the fire which destroyed their home, possibly one of their parents, as suggested by a sentence written on the 13th page of the Snicket File: "Because of the evidence discussed on page nine, experts now suspect that there may, in fact, be one survivor of the fire", which was accompanied by a photograph of the Baudelaire parents, Jacques Snicket, and a person whose face is turned against the camera.
  5. In The Carnivorous Carnival the Baudelaires learn about the disguise kit and are introduced to the eye.
  6. It is said that volunteers have passageways built underneath their houses so they can escape to safe places during fires (for instance, a passageway under the Quagmire home leads to Uncle Monty's house, from The Reptile Room, and the elevator shaft in 667 Dark Avenue leads from Esmé Squalor's apartment to the Baudelaire mansion, as seen in The Ersatz Elevator).
  7. In The Grim Grotto, Captain Widdershins tells the Baudelaires that V.F.D. started out as a fire department, but eventually expanded to have planes and ships and included many areas of undercover studies.
  8. In The Penultimate Peril, the Baudelaires find a person named Dewey Denouement, who was the only one who knew where the sugar bowl is. But Klaus finds out that the sugar bowl ends up in the pond next to Hotel Denouement. When he died, the secret supposedly died with him, although the narrative implies that the bowl was removed by a taxi driver, who is suggested to be Lemony Snicket himself. Clues in the books suggest that the sugar bowl contains horseraddish, an antidote for the poisonous fungi medusoid mycelium.

Snicket's hints

In Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, many occurrences of V.F.D. are seen; more importantly, it reveals much more about the nature of V.F.D. as an organization:

Snicket file

Snicket file
A Series of Unfortunate Events
Function compiled evidence against Count Olaf
First appearance The Hostile Hospital

The Snicket File is an important file of documents from the A Series of Unfortunate Events children's series.

Suggested in The Slippery Slope to have been written by Jacques, Kit and Lemony Snicket, it is first mentioned in The Hostile Hospital, in which it is also referred to as the Baudelaire file. Count Olaf wants to obtain and destroy it because it supposedly has enough evidence to put him and his associates in jail. The Baudelaire orphans, Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire also want the file, believing it to contain information about themselves and the whereabouts of a possible survivor of the fire that destroyed their family home.

The Snicket File has thirteen pages and is said to contain charts, maps, and photographs. It has also been described by characters in the series as "the file about the Snicket fires" and "the Baudelaire file". The thirteenth page features a photograph of Jacques Snicket, a man facing away from the camera (very probably Lemony Snicket), and Mr. and Mrs. Baudelaire (and, out of sight, the photographer) standing in front of 667 Dark Avenue in cold weather, accompanied by the text "Because of the evidence discussed on page nine, experts now suspect that there may in fact be one survivor of the fire, but the survivor's whereabouts are unknown."

The contents of page nine, and the rest of the pages of the file (with the possible exception of one page of Lemony Snicket's planned opening sentences for The Bad Beginning, which was instructed to be placed in the Baudelaire file), are unknown, as is whether the fire referenced is the one which destroyed the Baudelaire home, or that which destroyed the Quagmire home, or indeed any one of a number of other fires associated with the V.F.D.

In The End, Snicket writes: "Kit Snicket's story of the Great Unknown made the Baudelaires see at last that their parents had gone forever into the great unknown, and that they would be orphans forever, too." This implies that after The End the Baudelaires are pretty sure that their parents have died in the fire and probably correct in believing so.

After learning from the keeper of the Library of Records at Heimlich Hospital, Hal, that there is information about themselves in "the file about the Snicket fires", the Baudelaire orphans attempt to retrieve the file from the hospital's Library of Records. However, they only retrieve the last page - page 13 - which was accidentally left behind when the rest was removed for an official investigation of unknown nature. The Baudelaires interpret the page they obtain as indicating that one of their parents survived the fire that supposedly killed them, and this knowledge motivates them until The Slippery Slope.

In The Slippery Slope, Count Olaf is given the Snicket File by the man with a beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard, in reward for having burnt down Caligari Carnival. These three, along with Esmé Squalor retreat into his tent to read it and discuss its contents - sending away his associates, who he did not want to learn the file's secrets. The file is later revealed to name the location of the last safe place for V.F.D. Afterwards, it vanishes from the narrative and does not appear again; it is assumed to either still be in Count Olaf's possession or to have been destroyed as he intended. It has no significance to the story after these events occur; in The Grim Grotto, Snicket writes that "For quite some time, the Baudelaires had thought [the Snicket File] meant that one of their parents was alive after all, but now they were almost certain it meant no such thing." The survivor referred to in page thirteen of the Snicket File found by Klaus in The Hostile Hospital was actually Quigley Quagmire (first mentioned in The Austere Academy , but first physically appearing in The Slippery Slope) making it highly unlikely for the Baudelaires that one of their parents is still alive. It is possible that the "important pieces of paper" blowing around in the Hinterlands, as mentioned by Lemony Snicket in "The Grim Grotto" were the Snicket file. Or, the papers could have been pages from the Quagmire notebooks, which were ripped apart by a harpoon gun in The Vile Village.

V.F.D. codes

Throughout the books, a variety of codes are used by individuals working for or against the organization.

The "Sebald Code" is first mentioned in Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, attributed to Dr. Gustav Sebald, and was usually used to communicate messages through Dr. Sebald's movies. When a ring is mentioned (in any form of said word), the code is activated. The first word after the ring is in code, as is every eleventh word thereafter. When the ring is said again, the code ends. A typical scene from a film might go like this:

(Doorbell rings)
Gertrude: This is quite a surprise! Please do come in, Robert!
Robert: How is Ebenezer doing?
Gertrude: He is very ill. I have given him an injection hourly.
Robert: That's a shame. He once was a perfect example of good health.
Gertrude: Yes, for comfort he examines old photos of when he was healthier. We have been to see Doctor Sebald, but it seemed rather like he was just talking in code.
(Alarm clock rings)
Gertrude: He must need another pill. Coming, Ebenezer!
(All leave)

In this case, the hidden message is "This is an example of Sebald code". The code relies on the actors speaking the words perfectly, and on the viewer being able to notice the scene. In The Unauthorized Autobiography, the movie Zombies in the Snow, Werewolves in the Rain, and wedding invitations from the Vineyard of Fragrant Drapes feature the Sebald code, although the only instance in the main series is on page 67 of The Penultimate Peril. Either Frank or Ernest used it when speaking to the Baudelaires. The message was "I can't tell if you are associates or enemies. Please respond". Though this message was suspected to be "I can't tell if you are in or enemies. Please respond", a number within one of the sentences needs to be skipped rather than counted as a word to get the correct message.

The Nameless Novel, a promotional website for Book the Twelfth of the series, presented an excerpt from the Sebald movie Ants in the Fruit Salad that used the Sebald code. In The Reptile Room, Uncle Monty took Violet Baudelaire, Klaus Baudelaire, and Sunny Baudelaire to see the film Zombies in the Snow.

In The Reptile Room, the same book as mentioned as above, Uncle Monty's death could be attributed to the fact that he never learned Sebald code, as Lemony Snicket claims. In the novel, Dr. Montgomery watched the Sebald movie Zombies in the Snow, which warned him that his new assistant was a traitor, but it is suggested that Uncle Monty did not understand the code. Sebald himself is presumed dead, and his estate is being handled by his sister, Sally Sebald. Doctor Montgomery Montgomery was killed by Count Olaf with snake poison.

In The Wide Window, Aunt Josephine uses a code to communicate the location where she was hidden. Aunt Josephine was later discovered to be a member of V.F.D.

The code was recognizable because Aunt Josephine was known to take a heavy interest in grammar. The orphans realized that there were many grammatical and spelling mistakes in the text of her letter. The message is formed by the letters or punctuation that should be there. For example:

Coded Statement: I saw a kat today. It was so udd that I thought, "I've better take a picture of this filine."
Corrected Statement: I saw a cat today. It was so odd that I thought, "I'd better take a picture of this feline."

So in this example, the coded message is "code".

Verbal Fridge Dialogue is a code whereby volunteers can contact others through the use of a refrigerator. It is noted in The Slippery Slope that it is used as an emergency communication. Fridges are used due to their contents having a high likelihood of surviving fires. These are few of the guidelines of the code:

The darkest of the jams three,
Contains within the addressee

(See also List of VFDs.)

In The Vile Village, Isadora and Duncan Quagmire use a code within couplets to send a message to the Baudelaires about their location. It is necessary to say that Isadora and Duncan are members. It is possible that Duncan and Isadora learned about some of the V.F.D codes when they were kidnapped by Count Olaf. In The Vile Village, Isadora wrote four couplets:

For sapphires we are held in here
Only you can end our fear.
Until dawn comes we cannot speak
No words can come from this sad beak.
The first thing you read contains the clue:
An initial way to speak to you.
Inside these letters the eye will see
Nearby are your friends, and V.F.D.

The first letters of each line spell out “FOUNTAIN”, referring to Fowl Fountain where they were held hostage by Count Olaf. They sent the messages by tying them to the feet of crows that flew from the fountain to the Nevermore Tree each night.

Then of course one word in the poem completes the code in this case "beak" which was the part of the fowl fountain where the Quagmire triplets were held. The word "eye" means the way to open the crow fountain beak. The button was the crow fountain's eye.

From the book Versed Furtive Discourse in the novel The Grim Grotto, the code Verse Fluctuation Declaration works using a piece of poetry; words in a poem that the communicator wishes to use as code are substituted for alternate words. The book gives the example that My Last Duchess by Robert Browning may instead be written as My Last Wife by Obert Browning; in this case, the coded message is "Duchess R". In The Grim Grotto, the orphans receive a Volunteer Factual Dispatch which is written in this code. There are two poems (Lewis Carroll's The Walrus and the Carpenter and T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land) that tell them that they must go a taxi that will be waiting at Briny Beach. (See also List of VFDs.)

In several of Lemony Snicket's books, most notably in The Hostile Hospital, anagrams are used by Count Olaf to diguise himself and his henchmen. Lemony Snicket also uses anagrams to hint that several plays written by a Mr. Al Funcoot were actually written by Count Olaf.

Some anagrams used are as follows: Al Funcoot (A disguise name used for Count Olaf when he wrote plays), Flacutono (A name used for Olaf's bald associate whenever he was disguised), O. Lucafont (A name given to Olaf's hook-handed associate whenever he was disguised), and Laura V. Bleediotie (A false name used for Violet when Olaf tried to pass her off as a hospital patient), Dr. Tocuna and Nurse Flo (A name originally meant for the two powder faced women, two of Olaf's assistants, but instead were used for Klaus and Sunny - both of the names put together form the anagram). (All of the names stated above are anagrams of Count Olaf, except Laura V. Bleediotie, which is an anagram of Violet Baudelaire)

A Vernacularly Fastened Door is a special lock used in V.F.D. meeting places. It contains a keyboard. To enter, a user must answer three questions, which are secret themselves, by typing the answers into the keyboard. Lemony Snicket explains that to do this, a volunteer must know a large amount of information. If they are correct, the door will open. The Vernacularly Fastened Door was first discovered by Violet Baudelaire, Klaus Baudelaire and Quigley Quagmire in The Slippery Slope.

Other codes or coded messages from the series are:

Locations with V.F.D. activity

The following is a list of locations with V.F.D. activity:

Members

Main article: V.F.D. members

V.F.D. animals

For more details on this topic, see Fauna in A Series of Unfortunate Events#V.F.D. animals.

Some of the animals used for the benefit of V.F.D. members include:

  1. Snakes/Reptiles - The Reptile Room. Uncle Monty used them for his studies, but the Mamba Du Mal supposedly killed Monty right before he and Stephano (Count Olaf in disguise) was to take the Baudelaire orphans to a distant country, although it was really Count Olaf who injected him with the venom.
  2. Leeches - The Wide Window. After eating, Aunt Josephine went onto the lake with Count Olaf (in disguise of course) and the children and was possibly (since it never actually directly says she dies, and the book also states that she was a fiercely strong swimmer) killed by the leeches when Count Olaf pushed her off the boat, which actually helped Count Olaf.
  3. Crows - The Vile Village. They were used to help Isadora and Duncan Quagmires connect with the Baudelaires, while the Quagmires were trapped inside a giant crow fountain.
  4. Lions - The Carnivorous Carnival. When Madame Lulu helped Olaf get the lions, they were deprived of food and became vicious and savage. Violet and Klaus were almost fed to the lions, but Madame Lulu and the bald man with the long nose fell in instead.
  5. Eagles - The Slippery Slope. The man with a beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard use them to kidnap the Snow Scouts and to attack the Quagmires and Hector. In The Penultimate Peril it is made known they used them to kidnap even more kids.

List of V.F.D.s

The publishing company for The Mamba du Mal: A Snake That Will Never Kill Me, by Tony "Mommy" Eggmonteror.
An article from The Daily Punctilio which states that Fernald was responsible for burning down Anwhistle Aquatics.
Jerome Squalor's favorite restaurant and where he met Esmé Squalor.
The book Klaus finds in the Gorgonian Grotto.
The publishing company which published Ivan Lachrymose: Lake Explorer, by Vincent Francis Doyle.
Klaus invents this meaning as a joke. It refers to the raw fish and seaweed diet they have to eat which is very flavorless indeed.
Under the copyright in the Autobiography, Snicket says:

"If you recognize yourself in any of the photographs or illustrations in this book you may find yourself in Very Frightening Danger and/or slightly embarrassed but there is nothing you can do about it."

The author of Ivan Lachrymose: Lake Explorer.
This company published I Lost Something at the Movies by Lena Pukalie.

See also

 
Novels

The Bad Beginning (1999) · The Reptile Room (1999) · The Wide Window (2000) · The Miserable Mill (2000) · The Austere Academy (2000) · The Ersatz Elevator (2001) · The Vile Village (2001) · The Hostile Hospital (2001) · The Carnivorous Carnival (2002) · The Slippery Slope (2003) · The Grim Grotto (2004) · The Penultimate Peril (2005) · The End (2006)
Characters
Elements
Media
 
 

The Unauthorized Autobiography (2002) · The Baby in the Manger (2002) · The Lump of Coal (2004) · The Beatrice Letters (2006) · Horseradish (2007) · The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming (2007) · The Composer Is Dead (2009) · 13 Words (2010) · New American Haggadah (2012) · More works

 
Portal ·

Category · Project · Book