Well I was half right.
The final book is a bit different from the others. It really gets into some religious symbolism.
So, spoilers, spoilers spoilers.
The children and Olaf were on a boat on the ocean, the end up shipwrecked on a mysterious island. The people who live there, were all shipwrecked there, very few were born there and the islanders seem to instantly see that Olaf is a villain and they refuse to take him in, while they do take in the children. Of course there is a catch or maybe 22 of them, all set forth by the island’s facilitator, Ishmael. They give up their clothes to live in the simple white robes of the islanders. Klaus is barely allowed to keep his glasses. However they all secretly keep something. (ribbon, commonplace book, a whisk) The islanders lives consists of eating seaweed, raw fish stew (no spices) and onion soup everyday, combing the beach for debris from shipwrecks. The vast majority of which is dumped on the far side of the island in an area the islanders are not allowed to go. On that side is a huge apple tree.
Anyway, later Kit and the Very Deadly Viper wash up on the shores. Olaf finds the diving helmet with the deadly fungus and he attempts to disguise himself as the preggers Kit Snicket. Kit is injured and spends most of the time on a big pile of books that she made into a raft.
Some of the islanders want to oust Ishmael as the leader. When the kids secrets are found out, they are cast out and have to hang with Olaf. Olaf has been put into a large bird cage. Olaf has some great bits with the kids as he schemes to take over the island, using the fungus and the kids as henchmen. The kids complain that something isn’t fair and he just looks at them and says, “The World isn’t fair.” The rebellious islanders try to enlist the kids to help them. They have mixed feelings about causing another schism. But when they and Inky, (the Very Deadly Viper) travel to the far side of the island, they find not only the Apple tree, which is the size of office building, they find all the debris of the world. Then, inside the tree they find living quarters that include a vast library, a workshop and a huge kitchen.
They also find a huge book call “A Series of Unfortunate Events” which is a history of the island. They read the last entry and it says how Kit Snicket showed up and give a reference to an earlier page. The kids turn to that page and realize that the page is written in their mother’s hand. Ishmael shows up and explains that basically he only wants to keep the islanders safe. The things he dumps here, and enjoys for himself, could cause schisms, that is why he doesn’t tell them the whole story, just as their parents didn’t tell the kids the whole story as they never mentioned to the kids anything about the island or VFD to protect them from the worlds evil.
So the kids, kind of decide to stay at the island with Ish, but the rebellion starts and when Olaf shows up, Ish shoots him with the harpoon gun’s last harpoon. He hits the helmet and everyone gets poisoned. The kids run back to the tree and they look all through the kitchen but there is no horseradish or wasabi. So they decide to read the book to see if their parents hid the stuff. They almost die as they finally figure out that the apple tree has been crossed with what they need and the Viper brings the nearly dead children an apple which saves their lives. They gather up a bunch of apples and head back to the islanders. They are all leaving the island and are going to row ashore. They won’t take the apples. Ish explains that they are going to row to lousy lane and go to the horseradish plant there. The kids remember how he has been eating apples all along so he is immune.
The kids go back to Kit Snicket but they can’t lift her off the books. She explains how she found the Quagmires and how they ended up on the sub with the Captain and Ferdenand and Fiona and how Fiona was sorry for what she did to Klaus. However the ship was attacked by the mysterious thing that is just the big question mark which Kit’s brother called ‘the great unknown’. Kit left on the raft and everyone else goes into the great unknown. One of the Quagmires calls out to Violet as they were going down, but Kit couldn’t tell which boy it was.
Then she goes into labor. They can’t get her down off the books so they must get help from Olaf. He is about to die from the fungus as is Kit. Kit can’t take the cure because it is unsafe for unborn children. Olaf eats an apple, and helps down Kit and gives her a kiss, then he dies from, not from the fungus but from the harpoon. Kit has a child, a little girl and Kit dies. The children stay on the island for a year, raising the child themselves and reading the book. They decide to rejoin the unsafe world realizing that the story never ends. It didn’t begin with them, nor will it end with them. The find that the boat they came upon is the best boat to leave upon and when they remove the ‘Count Olaf’ nameplate that had been taped on, they read the real name of the ship, which is also the name of Kit’s little girl.
Beatrice
So I was right in that the Beatrice letters are from the daughter, to Lemony but not that their mother survived. Their parents did not survive the fire. The moral to the story is that that life is unfair and cruel but worth living.
Good thing I previewed, I almost messed those spoiler tags.
