User:Eddie891/Olaf

Count Olaf is a fictional character created by author Daniel Handler, writing under the pen name Lemony Snicket. He is the primary antagonist in A Series of Unfortunate Events, and appears in all thirteen books.

He was portrayed in a 2004 film by Jim Carrey and in a TV series from 2017 to 2019 by Neil Patrick Harris, both based on the series.

Characterization

Count Olaf is the series' main antagonist and one of the primary characters. A failing actor who is after the Baudelaire fortune, Count Olaf follows the children with dogged determination to obtain their inheritance and kill them. He was once part of the secret organization of V.F.D. (Volunteer Fire Department) before helping to instigate a schism that split its members. He joined the fire-starting side of the organization and was known to have committed a wide assortment of arsons, among numerous other crimes, in his thirst to destroy the organization and gain revenge over his former comrades. He is known for his one eyebrow, gleaming eyes, and V.F.D. insignia tattoo, shaped like an eye, on his ankle.

Following the death of their parents in a fire that destroyed their entire home, the three Baudelaire children are placed under Count Olaf's abusive care where he is mentioned to be their third cousin four times removed or their fourth cousin three times removed. He proves to be a terrible guardian whose sole motivation for taking the children in was stealing their family fortune, planning on killing all three of them after succeeding. After losing custody of the children after his violent nature and scheme was exposed, Olaf manages to escape, evade capture and begins a series of attempts to regain guardianship over them by appearing, disguised, at the homes of the children's successive guardians and carrying out complicated plots often involving but not limited to murder and arson. In The End, when he and the Baudelaires arrive at the island welcomed by its castaway inhabitants and their leader Ishmael, Count Olaf then disguises himself as Kit Snicket, who had washed up on shore on a raft. To impersonate a pregnant Kit, Count Olaf sticks the helmet with the medusoid mycelium under the dress he is wearing. The islands people and their leader Ishmael recognize him as Count Olaf, and Ishmael uses a harpoon gun to shoot Count Olaf. The harpoon pierces the helmet, releasing the medusoid mycelium and injuring Count Olaf. In a unique act of kindness, Olaf brings Kit to a safe place to give birth before kissing her, implying a previous romantic relationship, before he dies from his injuries. Kit too dies soon after giving birth to a daughter, naming her after the Baudelaires' mother, Beatrice.

Olaf's disguises are as follows:

• In the TV series, Olaf improvises the disguise Yessica Haircut to convince Mr. Poe (who had a haircut scheduled that day) to grant him custody of the Baudelaire children prior to the events of The Bad Beginning.
• Stephano (/ˈstɛfənoʊ/ STEF-ə-noh), a herpetologist lab assistant to the Baudelaires' second guardian Dr. Montgomery Montgomery, whom he later murders. In order to conceal his identity, Stephano speaks in a ridiculous Italian accent and has a bald head, shaved eyebrows and a long, scraggly beard.
• Captain Julio Sham, a sea captain with an eyepatch and a wooden peg leg who romances and later murders the Baudelaires' third guardian Aunt Josephine by purposely pushing her to the waters of Lake Lachrymose, where the Lachrymose Leeches are waiting. Captain Sham claimed that he has a peg leg after his original leg was eaten by the Lachrymose Leeches.
• It was mentioned at the end of The Wide Window that Count Olaf escaped on a train leaving Lake Lachrymose disguised as a rabbi.
• Shirley, the female receptionist of Dr. Georgina Orwell during the Baudelaires' stay in Paltryville. To conceal the eye tattoo on her ankle, Shirley wears long stockings. Her name is often cited as Shirley T. Sinoit-Pécer—spelling receptionist backwards—but she was officially renamed to Shirley St. Ives in the TV series.
• Coach Genghis, a Prufrock Preparatory School gym teacher who wears a turban to cover his monobrow and running shoes to cover his ankle tattoo. To avoid religious profiling, Genghis speaks in a southern American accent in the TV series.
• Gunther (/ˈɡuːntər/ GOON-tər), a fashionable foreign auctioneer who pretends that he cannot speak English fluently and overuses the word “please.” As Gunther, Olaf concocts a plan to smuggle the kidnapped friends of the Baudelaires out of town. Gunther wears equestrian boots to cover his ankle tattoo and a monocle to distort his monobrow. In lieu of a monocle, he wears large, dark glasses in the TV series.
• The TV adaption of The Vile Village had Count Olaf disguised as a lonely old bartender in the Village of Fowl Devotees. Only Arthur Poe, banker and the person the Baudelaire parents entrusted their children to, was fooled by this disguise when he came into the bar.
• Detective Dupin, a scatting, smooth-talking detective with an affinity for things that are “cool.” Dupin wears sunglasses to hide his monobrow and brightly colored plastic shoes to cover his ankle tattoo.
• Mattathias (/ˌmætəˈθaɪ.əs/ MAT-ə-THY-əs), the new Human Resources director at Heimlich Hospital who appears chiefly as a voice over the intercom. This is the first disguise in which Olaf attempts to murder the Baudelaire children. In the TV series, Mattathias is a doctor whose full name is Mattathias Medicalschool.
• The TV adaption of The Carnivorous Carnival has Count Olaf posing a ringmaster named "Count Olaf, but not the same Count Olaf who is wanted for an assortment of crimes."
• The TV adaption of The Grim Grotto and The Penultimate Peril has Count Olaf posing as the father of a "normal happy family."
• The TV adaption of The Penultimate Peril also had Count Olaf posing as Jacques Snicket when he meets with Mr. Poe in the hotel's Indian restaurant.
• In The End, Olaf on the coastal shelf, dons Esmé Squalor's flame dress and a wig made of seaweed in an attempt to disguise himself as Kit Snicket. To emulate the look of a pregnant woman's belly, he uses a diving helmet. This disguise fails to fool anyone, a first for the series.

While the Baudelaire children can see through all of Olaf's disguises without fail, the adults around them cannot and consistently fail to aid the children. This forces the Baudelaires to try to unmask him over and over again.

In the 2004 film and its video game adaption, Olaf was portrayed by Jim Carrey with additional dialogue being provided by Robin Atkin Downes. Due to Carrey's comedic manner, Olaf's sincerity was drastically toned down and his occupation as a comically bad actor was highlighted. Unlike the books, Count Olaf loses custody of the Baudelaires after Mr. Poe saw that he "let Sunny drive." He does redeem himself to Mr. Poe when he rescues the Baudelaires from the Lachrymose Leeches which leads up to his plot that involved "The Marvelous Marriage." When Count Olaf's plot was exposed, everyone in the audience converged on Count Olaf as he is arrested by the constable. Lemony Snicket states that the judge's decree is that Count Olaf be made to suffer every hardship he did on the Baudelaires. Then Lemony states that Count Olaf vanished after a jury of his peers overturned his sentence. In the video game adaption, Count Olaf escaped when the lights went out.

In the 2017 TV series, he is portrayed by Neil Patrick Harris. In flashbacks, it is shown that Count Olaf was engaged to Kit Snicket, his father was the chief of the City's official fire department, and his mother had died in a fire. His father was accidentally killed one night at the opera, by a poison dart meant for Esmé, thrown by Beatrice Baudelaire, accompanied by Lemony Snicket. This led to both Olaf's swearing vengeance on both Beatrice and Lemony (which explains his hate for both the Beaudelaire, mostly Beatrice, and Snicket families, except Kit) and the schism between V.F.D.'s Noble and Villain factions. After some time wandering underground, Count Olaf was taken in as a student of the Man with a Beard But No Hair and the Woman with Hair But No Beard.

Appearances

Books

Title	Date	Ref(s)
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

Analysis and reception

Since the release of the first novel, The Bad Beginning, in September 1999, A Series of Unfortunate Events has gained significant popularity, critical acclaim, and commercial success worldwide. The books have collectively sold more than 60 million copies and have been translated into 41 languages. Both the film and movie were popular...

Writing in Vulture about the TV series, Jackson McHenry concluded that "The world, full as it is with complacent adults, might be rigged in Count Olaf’s favor, but luckily, the Baudelaire children aren’t fooled. Neither, of course, is the audience of the show. That’s the two-sided nature of Count Olaf’s bad acting: It’s unsettling to watch Olaf’s obvious disguises go undetected, but his performances also push the show into the comfortably absurd." Glen Weldon wrote an article in NPR titled "'A Series Of Unfortunate Events' Is All About Olaf".

His name could be a literary reference to Olaf Tryggvason or a character in Théophile Gautier's book Avatar.

Count Olaf is cited as an example of an adult who serves as a poor guardian for children in the book Human Rights in Children's Literature.