History Literature / ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents

* NeverFoundTheBody: What happened to Aunt Josephine [[spoiler:and the cast left inside the hotel]] is left in the air.

* MocksteryTale: The protagonists are attempting to uncover several mysteries related to their orphanhood and a mysterious organization V. F. D. which they were members of; the reader is expecting that the ending books will provide the answers. However, the final book called The End has an entirely different focus; eventually, the whole series turns out to be more of a coming-of-age story than mystery fiction, and one of the author's points is that the world is full of unanswered questions.

* NeverFoundTheBody: [[spoiler:What happened to the cast left inside the hotel is left in the air]].

* AnyoneCanDie: The series kicks off with the deaths of the protagonists' parents in a fire, and anyone who takes time to care for the orphans meets a horrible fate. Notable character deaths include [[spoiler:Uncle Monty, Aunt Josephine, Jacques Snicket, Madame Lulu, Dewey Denouement, Count Olaf, and Kit Snicket]]. Ultimately over the course of the series, ''almost every character'' ends up either dying or suffering an ambiguous maybe-deadly fate, including [[spoiler:the Baudelaire orphans themselves]]. The only definite survivors by the end are [[spoiler:Lemony and Beatrice II]].

* AnyoneCanDie: The series kicks off with the deaths of the protagonists' parents in a fire, and anyone who takes time to care for the orphans meets a horrible fate. Notable character deaths include [[spoiler:Uncle Monty, Aunt Josephine, Jacques Snicket, Madame Lulu, Dewey Denouement, Kit Snicket, and Count Olaf]]. Ultimately over the course of the series, ''almost every character'' ends up either dying or suffering an ambiguous maybe-deadly fate, including [[spoiler:the Baudelaire orphans themselves]]. The only definite survivors by the end are [[spoiler:Lemony and Beatrice II]].

* AnyoneCanDie: The series kicks off with the deaths of the protagonists' parents in a fire, and anyone who takes time to care for the orphans meets a horrible fate. Notable character deaths include [[spoiler:Uncle Monty, Aunt Josephine, Jacques Snicket, Madame Lulu, Dewey Denouement, and Kit Snicket]]. Ultimately over the course of the series, ''almost every character'' ends up either dying or suffering an ambiguous maybe-deadly fate, including [[spoiler:the Baudelaire orphans themselves]]. The only definite survivors by the end are [[spoiler:Lemony and Beatrice II]].

A four-part prequel series called ''Literature/AllTheWrongQuestions'' concerning a young Lemony Snicket working for VFD was later released.

* AbsurdPhobia: Aunt Josephine from ''The Wide Window'' suffers from phobias of everything -- tripping over the doormat, getting electrocuted by using a telephone, and finally, ''realtors''. In TheFilmOfTheBook, her fears of them prove amusingly real for just one evening, when a hurricane strikes her house and causes all her appliances to malfunction exactly the way she claimed they would. In both the book and the film, it's implied to be a trauma-related disorder stemming from the death of her husband. In later books, her fear of realtors is implied to be justified due to [[spoiler:VFD-related stuff]].

** And some of the decent, competent adults wind up cowed into uselessness by their more forceful (evil, greedy, etc) companions, such as Charles and Sir. Or they simply don't listen to the children's "outlandish stories".

** To put it very simply: If there's an adult in this series, they're either completely idiotic or [[spoiler:a part of VFD, for good or evil]].

** The back covers list five or more of the "unfortunate events" found within, the last of which is usually something comparatively trivial, such as "an unsavory curry" or "tap dancing". (However, several of the books avert this, most notably the last one, which ends with "a truly haunting secret about the Baudelaire parents".)
* ArtisticLicenseBiology: Invoked: the Man with a Beard but No Hair and the Woman with Hair but No Beard identify eagles as mammals. Lampshaded by the well-read protagonists.

* BabySeeBabyDo: When Violet and Klaus are talking about how "brilliant" the murdered person in ''The Reptile Room'' was, Sunny says, "Brilliant!".

* {{Bildungsroman}}: Lampshaded in ''The Penultimate Peril'' by Sunny.

* BlackAndGrayMorality: While Olaf and the fire-starters are unambiguously evil, the "good" side of VFD is only relatively good in its mission. Both sides kidnap children to recruit new members.

* BrattyFoodDemand: In "The Bad Beginning", Count Olaf's rude, evil theatre troupe bang on the table and demand their food, and when they get served spaghetti, they demand to be served roast beef instead.
* BreakingSpeech: Or rather, Gloat, in the movie. Olaf reveals to the audience that he has just legally married Violet and played everyone for a sap. When Mr. Poe demands that the Chief of Police arrest him, Olaf calls Poe and everyone out on how the kids had repeatedly tried to warn the adults and asked for help, but they wouldn't listen to them. "[[VillainHasAPoint No one ever listens to children]]".

** In The Splippery Slope, the Baudelaires run into the [[spoiler: Snow Scouts]], who have a pledge. In the pledge, helpfully named The Alphabet Pledge, the [[spoiler: Snow Scouts]] describe themselves as 26 different adjectives, each beginning with a different letter of the alphabet. Most of them are normal, but amongst the list are "human" and "xylophone".

* BurgerFool: The Anxious Clown, With clown-costumed waiters, balloons, and food with names like "Surprising Chicken Salad".
* TheBusCameBack: [[spoiler:Phil]] in ''The Grim Grotto'' returns as the cook on the ''Queequeg''. Tons of examples in ''The Penultimate Peril'', including Mr. Poe, Jerome, Justice Strauss, the teachers from Prufrock Prep School, residents of the Village of Fowl Devotees, Hal (running an Indian restaurant), Carmelita Spats, Sir, Charles, and [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg Bruce]] (a minor character from ''The Reptile Room'').

** Carmelita Spats always refers to people as "Cakesniffers".
** Esmé Squalor always says "It is rude to...", not to mention her constant talk of what is "In" and "Out".

* CharactersDroppingLikeFlies: By the end of the series, [[spoiler:practically every notable character has either died or else been abandoned by the narrative at a point when their survival is very much up in the air]]. Many secondary and one-off characters from throughout the story are left trying to [[spoiler:escape a burning hotel while ''blindfolded'' (let's just say kangaroo court and move on)]], including [[spoiler:Mr. Poe, Justice Strauss, and both Jerome and Esmé Squalor]]. Another group of characters including the Quagmires and the [[spoiler:hook-handed man]] is either devoured or rescued by the question-mark-shaped entity, and [[spoiler:the island's inhabitants are left sailing away with only the possibility of a single apple to save them from the Medusoid Mycelium's poison spores]]. Even the Baudelaires themselves and [[spoiler:Kit's newborn daughter]] only spend a year in safety on the [[spoiler:island]] before resuming their journey, pursued by [[spoiler:the question-mark-shaped entity, which leaves their fate ambiguous as well]].

*** Or, in the first song in the Tragic Treasury, when listing Olaf's henchpeople the song says "and one long-nosed bald man with warts". So the wart-faced man and the bald man may have been retroactively combined into one.

* ComicBookTime: Duncan and Isadora say they spent three semesters at the academy before the Baudelaires arrive. "The Slippery Slope" later establishes the Quagmire fire as happening after "The Reptile Room". Excluding the last Chapter, Violet and Klaus only have one birthday each throughout the series.
* CommonMeter: "The Little Snicket Lad" shares the common meter with "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," "Amazing Grace," "Pokemon," "Yellow Rose of Texas," and "Gilligan's Island theme."

* ContinuityNod: Tons of these, especially in "An Unauthorized Biography". [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] and [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in "The End"

* CouchGag: Every book begins with an illustration of the Baudelaires and the current disguise of Count Olaf. However, eventually, Olaf's disguise stops changing and a picture of himself as normal is used, and instead the ''Baudelaires'' start having changes done to their illustration (Carnival freaks, diving helmets, and Klaus&Violet wearing snow scout masks)

* DamnedByFaintPraise: Fernald when trying to defend Count Olaf to his sister says that Olaf's redeeming quality is his "laugh". Fiona lampshades that it's not redeeming at all.

* DeceptionNoncompliance: In the third book, Aunt Josephine is forced by Count Olaf to pretend to commit suicide and turn over custody of the kids to "Captain Sham" (who is Olaf in disguise). She forges a suicide note, but deliberately fills it with misspellings so the kids pick up on the secret code she wrote for them since they know their aunt is [[GrammarNazi utterly pedantic about proper spelling]]. But she was hoping that they would come to live with her in the cave with groceries, not stand up to "Captain Sham".

** The series is a deconstruction of children's and young adult media like "three kids with dead parents having adventures in all kinds of exotic locales, solving mysteries, and foiling the plans of their evil adult nemesis", acknowledging and ''emphasizing'' how terrible and traumatizing such a lifestyle would be.

** The clock in the lobby of the Hotel Denouement is the stuff of legend, a phrase which here means "very famous for being very loud." It is located in the very center of the ceiling, at the very top of the dome, and when the clock announces the hour, its bells clang throughout the entire building, making an immense, deep noise that sounds like a certain word being uttered once for each hour. At this particular moment, it was three o'clock, and everyone in the hotel could hear the booming ring of the enormous bells of the clock, uttering the word three times in succession: Wrong! Wrong! Wrong![[labelnote:Explaination]]This paragraph appears in chapters 4, 5, and 6 in ''The Penultimate Peril'', which occur concurrently and each follow one Baudelaire.[[/labelnote]]

** [[spoiler:The Baudelaires help Count Olaf break into the laundry room, start a fire as a signal, and escape from the burning Hotel Denouement because they know no one will find the sugar bowl anyway, other VFD members will know "the last safe place is no longer safe." Also, while Olaf may have them, he doesn't have the fortune while they're all wanted fugitives and in the middle of the ocean.]]

* ExternalRetcon: In explaining the difference between "denouement" and "end", Snicket "reveals" the DistantFinale of several FairyTale stories, involving the rather non-fantastical deaths of the heroes.

* FacelessEye: The mark of VFD while also comprising the letters.

** In "The Vile Village", Klaus turns thirteen after the trio has been imprisoned and condemned to death. When he finally realizes what day it is, he sadly wishes for a DeusExMachina as his gift.
** In "The Grim Grotto", Violet is desperately looking for something she can use to nurse Sunny back to health. When she opens the fridge, she finds a cake her sister had baked for her and realizes it's her birthday.

* GardenOfEden: This motif is twisted on the island in "The End", where [[spoiler:the Incredibly Deadly Viper offers the children an apple...to save their lives]].
* GeographicFlexibility: The spatial and temporal milieu of the series is best described as "everywhere and nowhere", as it's far from most known continents, and the large city the Baudelaires lived in doesn't even have a name.

* GoshDangItToHeck: "[[UnusualEuphemism Cakesniffer]]". ([[spoiler:Cocksucker]]).

* HauteCuisineIsWeird: Esmé Squalor is TheFashionista with everything, including food. Her signature drink early on is the "aqueous martini" (cold water with an olive in it) before she moves on to parsley soda. She also enjoys frequenting "Cafe Salmonella", a restaurant where every meal (including soup, salad, sabayon, bread, and ice cream) is made using primarily salmon.

* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Discussed in Book the Tenth, where the Baudelaires wonder if they have crossed the line by doing things like [[spoiler:planning to abduct Esme Squalor]]. Eventually Defied. While living as fugitives from the eighth book onward, the Baudelaires are forced to enact several questionable deeds, from deceiving people with disguises, attempting to trap Esmé to use as a hostage, burning down a hotel, and even accidentally killing someone. Initially, they believe they are justified in doing these because they are attempts to save themselves, but slowly start to realize that most of Olaf's wicked deeds are to save himself as well, making them wonder if they're any better than him. However, after a panicked exchange, they force themselves to see that remaining true to NoOneGetsLeftBehind is what differentiates them from Olaf.

* HonestyAesop: Inverted in "The Reptile Room or Murder", which says that although the moral of ''The Boy Who Cried Wolf'' is not to lie, sometimes it's good, or even necessary to lie.

* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: Alliterated "The <adjective> <noun>", e.g., ''The Miserable Mill'', ''The Wide Window'', for nearly all the books, the only exceptions being ''The Reptile Room'' and ''The End''.

* InUniverseFactoidFailure: The villains of The Slippery Slope proudly boast about how they control "two of the greatest mammals: the lions and the eagles!" Klaus calls them out on their error, but they don't care. Earlier, Esme defines "individual practitioner" as "a life of crime". Even baby Sunny knows that she's completely off the mark (and, funnily enough, provides the correct definition).

* {{Jerkass}}: Sir, Vice Principal Nero, the VFD council of elders to some extent, and Count Olaf when he's not being pure evil.
* JigsawPuzzlePlot: The Baudelaires slowly uncover the history of a secret organization called VFD, of which many adults in the story are a part.

* JustAStupidAccent: Characters trying to be "foreign" use broken English with clumsy syntax (like "I am loving of the children") and frequent interjections of "Please", and everyone falls for it.

* KillItWithFire: In the Village of Fowl Devotees, burning at the stake is the designated punishment for breaking ''any'' of the towns numerous rules (which includes the biggies like murder, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking but also]] [[DisproportionateRetribution trivial]] and ridiculous offenses like using mechanical devices, reading certain books, and talking out of turn in town meetings). This is because the town was founded by a bunch of people who were interested in/worshiped crows that migrated strangely, and so their first two rules were "no hurting the crows" and "anyone who breaks rules gets burned at the stake". At some point, they presumably started adding other rules. In any case, this doesn't seem to be enforced for minor offenses (as in the case of the sundae with the wrong number of nuts).

* LyricalDissonance: "How Do You Slow This Thing Down?", the original Gothic Archies song for the audiobook of ''The Slippery Slope'', is a song about a runaway caravan speeding down a mountain... sung as slowly and mournfully as possible.

* MeaninglessVillainVictory: Count Olaf's constant attempts to secure the Baudelaire fortune devolve into this, especially when he frames the Baudelaires for murder and makes them unwanted fugitives, so that even if they wanted to fight for their money and innocence with Mr. Poe's "[[UnwantedAssistance help]]", they would find it hard to do so. By that point, the Baudelaires don't care anymore about the money or trusting in adults thanks to Olaf's schemes, and they care less about being the better person as long as no one is hurt. Badly. They manipulate him into setting the last safe place on fire and escaping to the sea, far from civilization, where even if he has them he doesn't have the fortune. He seems to realize this in Book the Thirteenth when he and the Baudelaires end up on a deserted island, far from civilization, and only half-heartedly tries to disguise himself as Kit Snicket.

* MilkmanConspiracy: This series isn't keen on giving clear answers, but VFD seems to be nothing more than [[spoiler:the Volunteer Fire Department]].

* NeverFilledOutOfficialPaperwork: During Count Olaf's play, "The Marvelous Marriage", Violet has to sign the legal marriage document. She does so with her left hand as opposed to her right hand, which invalidates the contract since she didn't sign in her own hand, according to Justice Strauss.

* NominalImportance: Count Olaf's assistants are known only as "the hook-handed man," "the bald man with a long nose," "white-faced women," and "the person who looks like neither a man nor a woman." Later, named characters do join the troupe, and [[spoiler:the hook-handed man's name turns out to be "Fernald"]].

* NumberOfTheBeast: Close with 667 Dark Avenue.

** What probably pushed this over the edge was Lemony Snicket himself audaciously [[LampshadeHanging lampshading it]] by apologizing to readers specifically for having Olaf shout for the kids to "get in the [[RefugeInAudacity damn jeep]]".

* RaisedByTheCommunity: In ''The Vile Village'', the Baudelaires are placed in a program where they will be communally raised by the town of VFD, but the residents use it to make the Baudelaires do everybody's chores.

** Olaf as Coach Genghis, who purposefully makes the Baudelaires run laps all night for them to do poorly in class. Nero praises him as "the greatest gym teacher in the world" after Olaf praises his musical "genius".

** Also [[DiscussedTrope discussed]] in-universe when the Baudelaires recognize a mysterious couplet as Isadora Quagmire's by her "distinctive literary style".
* SingleTargetLaw: In "The Bad Beginning [[EitherOrTitle or]] Orphans", the narrator claims that there's a town which has a law that forbids him from entering it.

* SlidingScaleOfContinuity: The series is much the same as ''Literature/HarryPotter'', with the first four books or so being mostly independent, starting with the Baudelaires being adopted by a new guardian and carefully explaining who the characters are to potential new readers, but later on the continuity [[ContinuityCreep creeps]] and the reader starts to need to have read the previous books to make sense of all this stuff about VFD and Beatrice and so on.

* StealthInsult: At the end of his life, Olaf cites Philip Larkin's "This Be The Verse," but only the last stanza due to the rest of the poem having profanity inappropriate for a children's novel. Out of context, it sounds like just a cynical message on life and a warning to the Baudelaires not to have kids themselves,[[note]]which they defy by raising Beatrice[[/note]] but knowing the whole poem makes it apparent that he chose it as one last middle finger to VFD.

* WeAreNotGoingThroughThatAgain: After being framed for murder, and chased for several books, [[spoiler:the Baudelaires refuse to accept Mr. Poe's help and go to the authorities to ClearMyName because frankly, he hasn't been a help at all and a VFD member sent them a taxi]].
* WebcomicTime: The entire second half of the series takes place in no more than a couple of weeks, if that, but the books were published over a period of over five years; this is most noticeable when the Baudelaires meet Mr. Poe again in ''The Grim Grotto'', and he talks about how they've been missing for "a very long time".

** One of VFD's safe places was a cave a group of treacherous realtors seized, so perhaps that phobia was justified.

* WorldGoneMad: Once, things were united behind VFD. The schism happened, and everything went straight to hell.
* WorldOfMysteries: The author's whole point is that "everyone has their own stories, and you cannot know everything". Lampshaded in the seventh chapter of ''Penultimate Peril'', when the author mentions several random people involved in random shady goings-on, and in the ninth chapter of ''The End'', when the protagonists find a lot of different objects brought to the seashore, each of which has its own story and is mysterious in its way.

* WorstAid: Invoked; Count Olaf's henchmen trying to kill Violet via "craniectomy" -- not exactly subtle since it means "removing the head".

* WouldntHurtAChild: Unsurprisingly, few adults meet this standard. Justice Strauss, Uncle Monty, Jerome Squalor, Phil, Mr. Remora, and Mrs. Bass, and Captain Widdershins are among the minority in that they treat the Baudelaires kindly if remaining inept.

** On the villainous side, Olaf [[spoiler:stealing the Baudelaires' fortune]] in due part to PyrrhicVillainy. This leads to him having VillainousBSOD [[spoiler:after getting shot by his harpoon gun]].

* PyrrhicVillainy: Count Olaf's constant attempts to secure the Baudelaire fortune devolve into this, especially when he frames the Baudelaires for murder and makes them unwanted fugitives, so that even if they wanted to fight for their money and innocence with Mr. Poe's "[[UnwantedAssistance help]]", they would find it hard to do so. By that point, the Baudelaires don't care anymore about the money or trusting in adults thanks to Olaf's schemes, and they care less about being the better person as long as no one is hurt. Badly. They manipulate him into setting the last safe place on fire and escaping to the sea, far from civilization, where even if he has them he doesn't have the fortune. He seems to realize this in Book the Thirteenth when he and the Baudelaires end up on a deserted island, far from civilization, and only half-heartedly tries to disguise himself as Kit Snicket.

* KillEmAll: By the end of the series, [[spoiler:practically every notable character has either died or else been abandoned by the narrative at a point when their survival is very much up in the air]]. Many secondary and one-off characters from throughout the story are left trying to [[spoiler:escape a burning hotel while ''blindfolded'' (let's just say kangaroo court and move on)]], including [[spoiler:Mr. Poe, Justice Strauss, and both Jerome and Esmé Squalor]]. Another group of characters including the Quagmires and the [[spoiler:hook-handed man]] is either devoured or rescued by the question-mark-shaped entity, and [[spoiler:the island's inhabitants are left sailing away with only the possibility of a single apple to save them from the Medusoid Mycelium's poison spores]]. Even the Baudelaires themselves and [[spoiler:Kit's newborn daughter]] only spend a year in safety on the [[spoiler:island]] before resuming their journey, pursued by [[spoiler:the question-mark-shaped entity, which leaves their fate ambiguous as well]].

* TakeThat: Lemony Snicket takes some not-so-subtle jabs at various political figures via Sunny's "baby talk": There's "[[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush bush]][[UsefulNotes/DickCheney eney]]" for "You're an evil man" in ''The Slippery Slope'' and "Scalia" in ''The Penultimate Peril'', both of which have somewhat unkind translations). Then there's his association of poet ''Edgar Guest'' with the villains in ''The Grim Grotto'', even stating outright that it's because his poetry sucked in a TastesLikeDiabetes way.

* NiceHat: The Council of Elders in the seventh book wear hats shaped like crows.

* TheBusCameBack: [[spoiler:Phil]] in ''The Grim Grotto'' returns as the cook on the ''Queequeg''. [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters Tons of examples]] in ''The Penultimate Peril'', including Mr. Poe, Jerome, Justice Strauss, the teachers from Prufrock Prep School, residents of the Village of Fowl Devotees, Hal (running an Indian restaurant), Carmelita Spats, Sir, Charles, and [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg Bruce]] (a minor character from ''The Reptile Room'').

* PrecisionFStrike: In ''The Reptile Room''
--> Count Olaf/Stefano: Get in the damn jeep!

* AdultFear: Your parents dying in a freak fire that also destroys your homes and your treasures. Then you get shipped to one guardian after another, while a murderer picks off the adults one by one in hopes of stealing your fortune.

* EveryEpisodeEnding: Every book ends with the same formula: There's a full-page picture containing a clue to the plot of the next book; comical bios for the author and illustrator, with an [[PlotBasedPhotographObfuscation obscured picture]] of the former and a themed illustration of the latter; and a letter from Lemony Snicket to his editor explaining where to pick up the manuscript for the next book, along with several items related to it. Inverted at the end of ''The End'', where the ''photograph'' is an unobstructed portrait of the ''illustrator'' dressed as Lemony Snicket (and a bewildered expression on his face), while the ''illustration'' apparently depicts the author, and only his eyes are obscured (by cucumber slices). [[spoiler:The pattern is then restored at the end of ''Chapter 14'', complete with a GilliganCut in the illustrator's bio]].

* SocialServicesDoesNotExist: Nobody ever notices the misery the Baudelaires go through in their homes.

* EveryEpisodeEnding: Every book ends with the same formula: There's a full-page picture containing a clue to the plot of the next book; comical bios for the author and illustrator, with an [[PlotBasedPhotographObfuscation obscured picture]] of the former and a themed illustration of the latter; and a letter from Lemony Snicket to his editor explaining where to pick up the manuscript for the next book, along with several items related to it.
** Inverted at the end of ''The End'', where the ''photograph'' is an unobstructed portrait of the ''illustrator ''Dressed as Lemony Snicket (and a bewildered expression on his face), while the ''illustration'' apparently depicts the author, and only his eyes are obscured (by cucumber slices). [[spoiler:The pattern is then restored at the end of ''Chapter 14'', complete with a GilliganCut in the illustrator's bio]].

** [[spoiler:There's also the case of Friday... She's under ten years of age and breathed the spores of the mushroom, so she had but a few hours left to live when we last saw her. It's never confirmed she took the antidote, and thanks to mob psychology, it's highly unlikely she did.]
** However the fate of [[spoiler:Carmelita Spats]] remains ambiguous. [[spoiler:She's last seen in the Hotel Denouement before it takes fire]].

** [[spoiler:The Baudelaires help Count Olaf break into the laundry room, start a fire as a signal, and escape from the burning Hotel Denouement because they know no one will find the sugar bowl anyway, other VFD members will know "the last safe place is no longer safe." Also, while Olaf may have them, he doesn't have the fortunate while they're all wanted fugitives and in the middle of the ocean]]

* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: It's a children's book series about unfortunate events.

* KnightOfCerebus: The man with a beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard are so menacing, Snicket refuses to name them.

* ''The Puzzling Puzzles''

* UncertainDoom: At the end of ''The Penultimate Peril'', [[spoiler:The Hotel Denouement, which was full of almost every surviving named character from the previous books, was set on fire]]. ''The End'' never clarifies how this turned out or who did or did not survive.

** In The Splippery Slope, the Baudelaires run into the [[spoiler: Snow Scouts]], who have a pledgee. In the pledge, helpfully named The Alphabet Pledge, the [[spoiler: Snow Scouts]] describe themselves as 26 different adjectives, each beginning with a different letter of the alphabet. Most of them are normal, but amongst the list are "human" and "xylophone".

* BreadEggsMilkSquick: This series is full of these.
** In The Splippery Slope, the Baudelaires run into the [[spoiler: Snow Scouts]], who have a pledgee. In the pledge, helpfully named The Alphabet Pledge, the [[spoiler: Snow Scouts]] describe themselves as 26 different adjectives, each beginning with a different letter of the alphabet. Most of them are normal, but amongst the list are "human" and "xylophone".