"The End" Trivia Quiz

Answer: Ms. Baudelaire

"For Beatrice-- I cherished, you perished, the world's been nightmarished."

A young girl boards a trolley car with the intent of reaching the Hotel Denouement but the driver lets her know that the building burnt down years earlier. She boards nonetheless. Her name is Ms. Baudelaire.

Lemony Snicket, on the run for many years, is exhausted. Finishing a root beer float in a local diner, he recognizes that those he loved and the organization he was a part of are gone. He spends his days alone tracking the sad case of the Baudelaire orphans. The case, however, seems to have dried up. When they sailed away from the Hotel Denouement, they were never seen again. He happens to be in the same boat as they are, devoid of a happy ending.

Answer: The Olaf

The Baudelaires, along with Count Olaf, paddled out to sea in the Carmelita II. Olaf, waxing on what he accomplished by finally having the children in his clutches, also happened to be in possession of the harpoon gun and the diving helmet of Medusoid Mycelium. But nonetheless they were all adrift, paddling away from civilization. Olaf, attempting to flex his power, threatened to release the deadly spores but alas, they were all in the same boat; if he poisoned the Baudelaires, he would poison himself.

While Olaf attempted to rename the boat, the Baudelaires contemplated what to do. While Sunny suggested pushing Olaf overboard, Violet and Klaus reasoned that even without an actual compass, they still had a moral compass. It would be too terrible a thing to do.

And that's when the storm rolled in.

Answer: Friday

As a storm rages outside, Lemony Snicket crosses the last possible location of the Baudelaires off his list and writes one final entry-- the bottom of the sea. It seems almost hopeless.

After the storm, the Carmelita II...erm...the Olaf washed up on a rocky beach. The Baudelaires, finding themselves on a shoal surrounding an island protected by a sea wall, were fortunate to survive. By that measure, so was Olaf. They weren't alone either. While the Baudelaires found themselves to be castaways, there were people living on the island, isolated from the rest of the world and surrounded by the washed-up belongings from beyond their safe haven.

The girl who found them, Friday, assured them that they would be able to meet the people of the island but that they likely would not like Olaf. Nonetheless, they would interrupt their storm scavenging day for introductions and they would be able to meet their facilitator, Ishmael.

Answer: Decision Day

The islanders were poring over their scavenged items when Friday brought Olaf and the Baudelaires to meet them, and Ishmael was quick to somewhat recognize the evil Count. The situation was tense, especially when Olaf nabbed the harpoon gun and held the islanders hostage, but Ishmael defused the situation, insisting that Olaf, as per an old theatrical review that washed up on the island, was nothing more than a bad apple. With his islanders surrounding Olaf, he had the man stuffed into a birdcage and left out on the sea wall where he wouldn't harm anyone.

Ishmael took the Baudelaires out for a tour of their new island home and assured them that they would be safe there though they would be temporarily stranded if, in fact, they wanted to leave. With the rocky shoals around the island, no craft could pass through the sea wall except for one time a year when a boat could pass through the lowest point at the highest tide. They called it Decision Day. Fortunately, that day would be the following day, and they had an outrigger ready for anyone hoping to leave. No one however (at least according to Ishmael) ever wanted to leave.

As the Baudelaires came to understand the way of life of the island, the discovered that the people there were happy. It was a haven free of bad things, the worst of which, it seemed, was fire. And anything bad that washed up on the island would be put on the other side of the island, on the sea wall...to drown when the tides rolled in.

Answer: A tree

Despite the relative safety and enjoyment experienced by those on the island, the Baudelaires had a tough time acclimating to their new environment. After Violet suggested building a water filtration system for clean drinking water, Ishmael took her aside to put an end to her idea, implying that it could lead to fighting amongst the islanders and, potentially, schisms. Ishmael's suggestion: don't rock the boat.

Since Ishmael wouldn't tell them the real truth about the island, the Baudelaires had no choice but to speak to Olaf, and trekking to his cage at the sea wall, they offered him the possibility of leaving his cage in exchange for the truth. Olaf, playing hardball, wouldn't give anything away until he was let out.

It led to a stalemate, and that stalemate led to the children confronting Ishmael themselves, deep in a secret passage on a forbidden beach full of dangerous items. Within the base of a large tree there, as a storm loomed, the Baudelaires found the man of the island and he told them the truth.

Answer: Prufrock Preparatory School

Ishmael was forced to admit much of what the Baudelaires sought. Not only did Ish know their parents, but the Baudelaires spent time on the island with him when they were still alive. When he lived on the mainland, Ishmael was a school principal at Prufrock Preparatory School. Many times, children would pass through with the same gleam in their eyes as the Baudelaires and the Snickets and the Quagmires and Count Olaf, and when they did he would recruit them into a secret organization-- V.F.D. Figurative fires, he claimed, needed fighting. For a time the organization worked, but eventually that schism broke out. Ishmael left to live in exile and the Baudelaires eventually followed. When they arrived, they built the home in the tree, logged their records, cooked marvellous foods, and built inventions. Then one day, they left. And then the fire broke out and they passed away.

He urged the children to stay. They had the night to make a decision.

Lemony Snicket, passing through V.F.D.'s tunnels, reminisces about his memories of those he can never see again. He narrowly misses a chance encounter with a young Ms. Baudelaire.

Answer: Ishmael

When Decision Day came upon the people of the island, it appeared that, once again, no one wanted to leave. This is what made the Baudelaires' decision to depart all the more surprising. They started to explain how Ishmael was controlling peoples' attitudes with coconut cordial and the power of suggestion, but their argument was thwarted by the surprising arrival of a new castaway, arrived on a barge of books. Through their spyglass they could see that it was none other than Kit Snicket.

Complicating matters further was Count Olaf who, managing to escape his cage, coincidentally dressed up as a pregnant Kit to fool the islanders (he didn't). Ishmael was quick to spot the deception and, in an attempt to stop Olaf from bringing trouble to the island, wielded the harpoon gun.

The Baudelaires, however, raced off to help Kit. Alive, but exhausted, Kit warned them that she saw the diving helmet containing the Medusoid Mycelium as it, too, had washed up on the shores. Little did they know, Olaf refound it as well, and was using it to fake being pregnant. That's why, when Ishmael fired the harpoon, he doomed the islanders. It broke the diving helmet and released the spores to infect everyone on the island.

Answer: Sugar

As the spores spread around the island, Violet and Klaus announced that the only cure was horseradish or a horseradish substitute and, fortunately, Ishmael knew about the factory on Lousy Lane. With that, all of the islanders hopped into their outrigger, opting to leave the island on Decision Day. The Baudelaires advised them to stop-- they'd never make it and risked spreading the spores-- but Ishmael plodded on, leaving the children behind.

Count Olaf, with a harpoon stuck in his gut, finally accomplished what he wanted; he could finally watch those who disappointed him meet their unfortunate end.

Kit, rising from the barge, suggested to the children that they had not lost all hope yet. Though they may have lost the Sugar Bowl at the Hotel Denouement, there would be hope for the world, at least in its contents, as it contained a hybrid compound in its sugar; if horseradish cured the Medusoid Mycelium, the sugar inside immunized against it.

As for why Kit ended up on the island, she followed a distress signal put out by the Quagmires. Her submarine was attacked and she was only able to escape on her barge. And with Dewey dead, her baby would never meet her father.

The Baudelaires rushed back to their parents' tree home searching for any substitutes for horseradish, leaving kit to wait at the sea wall. There, unable to find wasabi or wormwood, they skimmed back through their parents' book of records and found the cure in the most unexpected of places-- the fruits of the tree they were within. And they nearly didn't eat them either. They would be saved from their fate by another unexpected castaway, Uncle Monty's Incredibly Deadly Viper, who would retrieve the apple for them.

Answer: Beatrice

When the Baudelaires returned to the barge, they presented Kit with the apple but she refused to take a bite, knowing it would harm the baby. Unable to move from her spot, she could only remain on the barge and be swept out to sea. They had no other choice but to reach out to Olaf for help and, though he initially hesitated, he took a bite of their apple when he realized Kit could die. Performing an uncharacteristic good deed, Olaf retrieved her, carried her through the water despite his injury, and brought her safely to shore. In his last moments, Olaf let her know that he never forgot about her before he succumbed to his fatal wound.

'Labour', as Lemony Snicket notes, is the term used for the process in which a woman gives birth, but it is also by no coincidence that it is also a word that means "a very difficult task". That evening, Kit gave birth to a baby girl that she would name after their mother.

Unfortunately, it would be too late for the apple to immunize Kit from the effects of the Medusoid Mycelium. Beatrice would be an orphan. But as the Baudelaires promised, she would never be alone.

All of our stories, as Lemony explains, begin in darkness and with our eyes closed. All of them end that way too.

Answer: One year

"For Beatrice-- We are like boats passing in the night-- Particularly you."

A year after Beatrice's birth, the Baudelaires celebrated her birthday-- another Decision Day-- by finishing the book their parents had written on the island. Just like their parents, they couldn't shelter the child from the world forever, and as much as the world is a complicated place, they needed to set sail. Removing the Olaf placard from the back of the Carmelita II they were met by a new coincidence; the boat that Olaf requisitioned from Briny Beach was none other than the Baudelaires'-- the Beatrice, named after their mother. Though the Baudelaires may not have been ready to leave, they realized that if they didn't leave, they could be waiting the rest of their lives. It was time to go home.

Some stories go on, even after the storyteller may stop telling them. As Lemony Snicket packs away all of his research and belongings and shuts his case, he hopes for the best. He receives a letter under his door and, to his surprise, it's an invitation from a relative, and another story to tell.

Heading down to the diner, he's greeted by his niece, a young Beatrice Baudelaire. And she's there to tell him a story. It's a story he knows parts of as she begins to tell the rest.