lemony snicket was really out there teaching us as elementary schoolers about grey morality, about how neither good nor bad people always get what they deserve, how being clever and kind doesn’t always guarantee you will triumph (although it’s certainly better than the alternative), how ignorant/complacent/dismissive though well-meaning adults can have just as harmful an impact on children as those with ill intentions, and how not every story has a happy and complete ending
fyi— my favorite quote of 2019 tv/film is Esmé Squalor shouting out, to the Baudelaire children, that when she gets her hands on them “…skinning you alive will be the second worst thing I’ve done in a hot tub.”.. and i just don’t see that being surpassed, by anything, anytime soon.
