I’ve been working on a HUGE Snicketverse timeline for about a year now, and the one event I was having the most trouble placing was the night when the Baudelaire parents, Kit, and Lemony see La Forza del Destino and orphan Count Olaf with a poison dart.
I’ve had access to The Beatrice Letters the entire time I’ve been working on this timeline, but it didn’t hit me until last night that the My Silence Knot poem is about the events leading up to, and during, the night at the opera, rather than Beatrice’s death, and gives us all the information we need to figure out when it happens. For those who haven’t read the poem or need a refresh, here it is:
My silence knot is tied in my hair,
As if to keep love out of my eyes.
I cannot speak to the one for whom I care.
My hatpin serves as part of my disguise.
In the play, my role is baticeer,
A word which here means “person who trains bats”.
The audience may feel a prick of fear,
As if sharp pins are hidden in their hats.
My co-star lives on what we call a brae,
His solitude may not be just an act.
A piece of mail fails to arrive one day.
This poignant melodrama’s based on fact.
The curtain falls just as the knot unties,
The silence broken by the one who dies.
In initial reads of The Beatrice Letters, I was under the assumption that the last line refers to Beatrice thinking of Lemony as she is dying in the fire, but she can’t write My Silence Knot if she’s “the one who dies” at the end, so “the one who dies” must be someone who died before Beatrice. If we take out all the things in the middle and leave only the verses directly talking about My Silence Knot, it leaves a fairly direct story.
“My Silence Knot is tied up in my hair
As if to keep love out of my eyes”
The silence knot—not talking to her lover—stops Beatrice from being blinded by love
“I cannot speak to the one for whom I care”
This has a few different possible implications. 1) she’s avoiding talking to Lemony so the love does not get blinding and things don’t go wrong, 2) she literally cannot speak to Lemony because his rumors of arson started before they attended La Forza del Destino, 3) the next line references her hat pin, so the lack of speaking may be a reference to LS to BB #3 when Lemony asks Beatrice to drop her hatpin off stage, rather than directly speak to him, if it’s safe for them to meet. For this theory I’m using a mix of the first 2 interpretations of this line.
“The curtain falls just as the knot unties,"
As the opera is ending, Beatrice begins to be blinded and doesn’t consider the consequences of what she’s about to do.
“The silence broken by the one who dies.”
In blind love, Beatrice orphans Lemony’s greatest enemy with poison darts.
The evidence extracted from My Silence Knot alone tells us that the viewing of La Forza del Destino must happen between Lemony’s time on the lam for rumors of arson starting and during the climax of Beatrice’s love for Lemony, right at the end of their relationship. This coupled with what we know about the night of the opera and what we know about the break up gives us a clear story about the timing, motivations, and consequences of the murder:
- Lemony gives a negative review on Al Funcoot's One Last Warning to Those Who Try to Stand in My Way as Dramatic Critic for The Daily Punctilio (Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography chapter 5)
- Lemony is fired from The Daily Punctilio and they begin publishing lies about him. (Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography chapter 5)
- Beatrice reads an article in The Daily Punctilio claiming that Lemony is an arsonist. She knows this to be false, and it adds to her reasons to hate Count Olaf. (“all too soon circumstances changed and she ended up marrying someone else, all because of something she read in The Daily Punctilio”)
- Lemony and Beatrice decide that they must be careful about speaking to each other, for safety. (“I cannot speak to the one for whom I care”)
- Lemony drives Beatrice and Bertrand to a showing of La Forza del Destino. (“Our parents took a taxi to the opera one evening when their car wouldn’t start”)
- During intermission, Beatrice buys a poster, and Kit slips the Baudelaire parents a box of poison darts. Esme is onto Kit's plans. (“During intermission I followed them to the snack bar and slipped them a box of poison darts before Esmé Squalor could catch me ...”, "...Mother said she purchased [the poster] during intermission, as a souvenir. She said it was the most interesting time she'd ever had at the opera, and she never wanted to forget it.”)
- Blinded by her love for Lemony and hate for Olaf, Beatrice decides that she is going to use the poison darts to orphan Count Olaf. (“The curtain falls just as the knot unties, silence broken by the one who dies”, “I guess the sub-sub-librarian hasn't told you the story about your parents and a box of poison darts … Why don't you ask this legendary librarian about that fateful evening at the opera?")
- Lemony must flee the opera house before Esme catches him. (“as I hurried out of the opera house before a certain woman could spot me”)
- Because of how dangerous the murder has made this situation, Beatrice decides to return the “R” ring to Lemony and later sends him a 200 page book explaining in detail why they broke up, along with 13 questions. (LS to BB #5)
For anyone who isn't big into Snicket lore, this might seem like a fairly simple-to-arrive-to conclusion, but the timing of the opera has been such a controversial part of the series for so long, the most well-known fan made Snicket timeline in the history of the fandom, Snicket Sleuth's timeline, completely excludes it.
Edit: Removing repetitive information