The Vile Village characters

Appears from the start

The eldest Baudelaire, a fourteen-year-old inventor who ties back her hair to think. After many failed guardians, she and her siblings are still hunted by Count Olaf and still searching for a way to free their kidnapped friends, the Quagmire triplets.

Appears from the start

The middle Baudelaire, twelve, bespectacled, and endlessly well-read, whose research guides the family. He is determined to rescue the Quagmires and to uncover the meaning of the secret V.F.D.

Appears from the start

The infant Baudelaire, who speaks in short exclamations and bites with four sharp teeth. Small but brave, she helps her siblings however she can.

Appears from the start

The murderous actor who hunts the Baudelaire fortune, marked by his single eyebrow and ankle tattoo. Having kidnapped the Quagmire triplets, he remains free with his accomplice Esme and is sure to appear in a new disguise wherever the children go.

Appears from the start

Count Olaf's glamorous girlfriend and accomplice, a former financial advisor obsessed with what is fashionable. Exposed in the children's previous home as a villain rather than a guardian, she now works openly at Olaf's side to seize the Baudelaire fortune.

Appears from the start

A Quagmire triplet and friend of the Baudelaires, an aspiring journalist orphaned like them and heir to a fortune in sapphires. Kidnapped by Count Olaf, he is still being held captive as the children search for him.

Appears from the start

Duncan's sister and fellow Quagmire triplet, a poet who composes rhyming couplets. Also orphaned and kidnapped by Count Olaf, she remains his captive as the Baudelaires try to find and free her and her brother.

Appears from the start

The coughing banker who manages the Baudelaire fortune and their placements. Kindly but useless in a crisis, he arranges the children's unusual new living situation and remains slow to see the danger they face.

First appears in chapter 3

The kindly handyman of the village that takes the children in, with whom they come to live. Gentle and generous in private, he is so painfully shy that he cannot speak or act in front of the town's imposing Council of Elders, which leaves him unable to protect the children openly even when he wants to.

First appears in chapter 5

A brash, oddly dressed detective who arrives in the village claiming to investigate crimes. His shining eyes and single eyebrow lead the Baudelaires to recognize him at once as Count Olaf in a new disguise, arrived to turn the town against them.

First appears in chapter 7

A calm stranger who is arrested in the village and accused of being Count Olaf because he bears a tattoo of an eye on his ankle, though the Baudelaires can see he is not Olaf at all. He speaks of a secret organization and seems to know something about the children's larger troubles, hinting at answers just out of reach.