Castaways (A Series of Unfortunate Events)

In Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, the castaways are fictional characters living on an island appearing in The End.

Ishmael

Ishmael is the island's facilitator. He was once a member of V.F.D., and has the tattoo of the organization on his ankle, although he attempts to hide this. He claims that Count Olaf once locked him in a giant bird cage and burnt down his house, although Olaf counter-claims that he did not set that particular fire. Ishmael once knew the Baudelaire parents; they were the island's facilitators when he arrived, but he forced them into exile and imposed his own views on the island colony. In his role as facilitator, Ishmael is in charge of solving the islander's problems, as well as sorting out all the things that they find on the coastal shelf. He is very capable at persuading the islanders to get rid of items they've discovered, telling them, "I won't force you", but giving them little other choice. His decisions on whether or not to keep the items are usually illogical, but the islanders follow his suggestions due to peer pressure and mob psychology- rather in the same way that Olaf used it in The Vile Village. Moreover, the coconut cordial that Ishmael persuades everyone to drink also plays a role in this because it serves as an opiate, making them drowsy and have difficulty making decisions for themselves. The items that Ishmael pronounces as useless are taken to the arboretum on the other side of the island on a sledge drawn by island sheep. He does not allow the islanders to keep secrets, but has many of his own; such as being able to walk despite claiming not to be able to, and eating the forbidden apples from the arboretum's tree. He claims that his feet are injured, preventing him from walking, and covers his feet with island clay. He claims the clay has magical healing powers, but he is really using it to hide the V.F.D. tattoo on his ankle, and frequently sneaks around to visit the arboretum when nobody is with him. Count Olaf thus described him as having feet of clay, a reference to a Biblical quotation meaning that one has a hidden weakness. In the middle of the book, he had Count Olaf sealed inside a large birdcage and pressured the islanders into abandoning the Baudelaires on the island's coastal shelf, even though he knew that the shelf would soon flood, drowning the orphans and Olaf. Later, he met the Baudelaires in the arboretum, telling them to give up their former lives and lead a safe life on the island. Not long after, upon discovering that the islanders are mutinying against him, he revealed that he was able to walk and used a harpoon gun to shoot Count Olaf, fatally wounding him but inadvertently releasing the deadly Medusoid Mycelium. Finally, he put the islanders' lives at stake by taking them away from the island on an outrigger and depriving them of a cure for the Medusoid Mycelium, although he had eaten a sample of the cure himself, which meant that he was "immunised" against the poison of the Medusoid Mycelium. Although the Incredibly Deadly Viper attempted to deliver a cure to the remaining islanders, it is unknown whether it succeeded. It seems that Ishmael would have let the islanders have the horseradish apples, except if they had any, it would eventually wash away the taste of coconut cordial. If this happened, the drowsiness of the islanders would have disappeared. The cordial, an opiate to make the islanders drowsy and never think of leaving, would have gone and the people would get curious. In a way, what Ishmael did was horrid and wrong in a sort of way. He literally "drugged" the islanders, so that many of them never thought of leaving the island. [unverified] Ish also did something wrong by the whole idea of not using the valuable, useful detritus and storing it in the arboretum. He was figuratively "blinding" the islanders from an exciting life. After all, it was the same food every day, the same chores every day, the same routine every time a storm its(e.g., "I won't force you, but I think that you should throw this coffee machine in the sled. We all know that the islands' diet does not consist of caffeine"). [unverified] Ishmael's name is taken from Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick; he often asks people to 'call me Ish', a parody of Moby-Dick's opening sentence, 'Call me Ishmael'. However, only Count Olaf refers to him by this nickname, perhaps showing that Olaf is the only one who truly knows him. It may also be that the islanders could not remember Ishmael telling them to call him Ish as they were literally "drugged" by the opiate of fermented coconut cordial.[unverified]

Friday Caliban

Friday Caliban is a young island girl who quickly befriends the Baudelaires, giving Sunny Baudelaire a whisk as a gift, and makes enemies with Count Olaf by abandoning him. She is the daughter of Thursday and Miranda Caliban, and was born on the island. Her mother told her that her father was eaten by a manatee in the storm which shipwrecked her on the island, but the truth is that Miranda and Thursday were separated by the schism and Miranda did not want her daughter to know this. Unfortunately, Friday had to leave the Baudelaires stranded on the island by leaving with the other islanders, all of them infected by the Medusoid Mycelium. It is mentioned that Ink, the Incredibly Deadly Viper, had brought them an apple on the water to save them, but it is unknown whether she or the other islanders were eventually saved. She had many secrets that island facilitator Ishmael would not approve of, including learning how to read, giving Sunny a whisk, and keeping Ink. She is named after the characters Friday from the book Robinson Crusoe, who was Robinson's friend and assistant, and Caliban from Shakespeare's The Tempest, who was a native of Prospero's island. Since she was born on the island, it is likely she has no idea of V.F.D.

It is possible that she is related to Olivia Caliban, as they have the same last name, and Monday, who is mentioned by Miranda Caliban.

Minor castaways

A group of castaways, including Brewster (the man with the window), Finn (the girl with the typewriter), Omeros (the boy with the playing cards), and Alonso (the man with the propeller).

• Alonso (named after a character in Shakespeare's The Tempest.)
• Ariel (named after a character in Shakespeare's The Tempest.)
• Jonah and Sadie Bellamy (named after the biblical Jonah; a character in The Adventures of Sadie, aka Our Girl Friday, a 1953 film about a shipwrecked girl; and Samuel "Black Sam" Bellamy, an 18th-century pirate who was shipwrecked off Cape Cod. The surname may also refer to Edward Bellamy, author of the utopian novel Looking Backward.)
• Rabbi Bligh (named after Bounty captain William Bligh.)
• Brewster (named after Maud Brewster, a character in Jack London's The Sea-Wolf.)
• Byam (named after Roger Byam, a fictional character in the novel Mutiny on the Bounty.)
• Mrs. Miranda Caliban (named after a character in Shakespeare's The Tempest.)
• Calypso (named after the sea nymph Calypso from Greek mythology.)
• Erewhon (named after the utopia in Samuel Butler's book of the same name.) It is also an anagram of Nowhere.
• Professor Fletcher (named after Bounty mutineer Fletcher Christian.)
• Finn (named after Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn.)
• Friday (named after a character in Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.)
• Dr. Kurtz (named after a character in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.)
• Larsen (named after Wolf Larsen, a character in Jack London's The Sea-Wolf.)
• Ms. Marlow (named after a character in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.)
• Madame Nordoff (named after Charles Nordhoff, co-author of Mutiny on the Bounty.)
• Omeros (possibly named after the Greek epic poet Homer, whose Iliad and Odyssey deal extensively with sea voyages and shipwrecks; another possibility is the 1990 poem of the same name by Derek Walcott, which is partly a retelling of the Odyssey set in the Caribbean.)
• Mr. Pitcairn (named after the Pitcairn Islands where the Bounty mutineers eventually settled.)
• Robinson (named after the title character in Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.)
• Sherman (named after General William Tecumseh Sherman, who survived two shipwrecks; or from William Pène du Bois’s The Twenty-One Balloons.)
• Thursday, islander for a short time before the events of book (probably a pun, as he is Friday's father)
• Weyden (named after Humphrey Van Weyden, a character in Jack London's The Sea-Wolf.)
• Willa (possibly named after writer Willa Cather who refers to a shipwreck in a notable quotation.)