AIBU To Think That The Plots Of The Chalet School Books Were Really Improbable

[TheShellBeach]

.................................such as Prince Cosimo, the endless kidnappings, all the train crashes/bus crashes/car crashes/plane crashes/boat sinkings hang on a minute, were there any boat sinkings

Okay, I've just remembered that there were a couple of near misses with boats when the CS was on the island. Joey was nearly flung overboard once (a missed opportunity for EBD to get rid of her IMO) and there were probably others.

Anyway - all aboard and ahoy there.

Shiver me timbers and hurl Joey into the bilge tank! 😂

I'm up to Ruey Richardson and I am noticing that once EBD gets up to about 30 or 40 books, she seems to stop bothering to tie up her plotlines at all. I may have missed something in Coming of Age (as it was quite boring, and I was skimmng), but did Miss Bubb die? Or did she just collapse dramatically at the Sale and then no-one ever mentioned her again? It seemed a bit of a waste of time setting up all that sub-plot about her in that case.

Improbable + EBD getting bored: the bank robbers in Joey & Co in Tirol. Lots of set-up of thrilling danger, bank robbers etc., and then all the kids accidentally attack some random hikers in a comedy anticlimax. It kind of feels like EBD is taking a Josephine M. Bettany approach to writing where she's going 'I've got 10 chapters already, so I only need 4 more and then I'll be done'.

@ZacharinaQuack Can't wait to read that one, it sounds hilarious!

For me, in terms of improbable plots it's the number of times Joey is at death's door for standing on the doorstep in the cold for 10 seconds etc. etc. Also Robin being carried around like a baby from the age of 6 till 16, and the sheer snobbery of EBD's disparaging comments about girls with "a Cockney accent" - Emerence being a prime example. How could she possibly have a Cockney accent if she'd been brought up in Oz?

Was it “Redheads” when one of the girls gets kidnapped? The plots were getting ridiculous by then, Brent-Dyer was losing the plot!

The number of girls who are "still and to all appearances dead" over the books is more than the average school.

Getting hit by a thunderbolt that cleverly digs a hole big enough for a swimming pool. In a suitable location. That and Professor Richardson thinking he has any hope of reaching escape velocity in his home-made moon rocket.

ps, thank you for the new thread!

hang on a minute, were there any boat sinkings

Annis Lovell doesn't sink but she has to leap out of her boat so as not to be dashed against the cliffs, I think.

I remember the motor boat plots in the last two books - 'the girls will not let the idea of motorboat races drop' states a mistress - then they are never mentioned again.

also Miss Ferrars jumping from one motorboat to another when one threatened to crash - physically impossible!!

Walk through a tunnel (cave- cant quite remember) and your hair turns grey

oh yes, hair going white overnight was a good example.

German aviator dropping letter to the Chalet School that lands in the C S grounds shortly after they'd moved from Guernsey to the Welsh marches.

I think because EBD made the Chalet girls really against the sort of thing that usually makes up the plots of school stories (midnight feasts, playing tricks on each other etc) she had to introduce crazy plot lines. Chalet School and the Linton's has Joyce organising a midnight feast that leaves her and others seriously unwell - that would never have happened at Malory Towers

Oh yes, the jumping from.boat to boat thing!!! Unless of course Miss Ferrars was really James Bond in disguise???

Here for some creamy milk and a solid lump of comfort.

Melanie Lucas. Quite early on someone said something about the last Breton girl at the school having been Jeanne le Cadoulec and the mere idea that Melanie might have been related to her was ridiculous because it would be far too much of a coincidence.

Near the end, Melanie mentions that she's related to Jeanne le Cadoulec and everyone says oh, yes, naturally.

Yes, but the kidnapper takes the wrong girl - but when he offloads her, he makes sure she has a valid train ticket back to the Chalet School. What a kind kidnapper!

Loads of girls were kidnapped. In loads of the books. But yes, in Redheads, Val is kidnapped and then told off once she gets back to school. Obviously it was her own fault that she was kidnapped and Miss Annersley even threatens her with expulsion.
Victim-blaming at its finest.

Not for the intrepid Kathie.

@ZacharinaQuack
Miss Bubb did die, and she jolly well deserved it.
Fancy trying to stop the girls playing hockey.
She was always destined for a sticky end.

The plot to Harry Potter is improbable, that’s what makes it fiction

@Warrensrabbit How can you shred my mental health in just one sentence? When I'm not investigating cupboards for entries to REAL albeit SNOWY worlds, I'm am bashing my trolley into various platform entrances at King's Cross.

HP didn't purport to be set in the real world, though! (Apologies if, with that statement, I have shattered any illusions)

Here for the Kaffee und Küchen, and the general merriment at the plots. And obviously to sneer at Mary Lou.

Yes, that’s the part that kills me. This kidnap gang is fine with abducting a girl they think is the daughter of their police nemesis with the intention of getting her addicted to drugs and then giving her back as a hopeless wreck, but still are correct about valid train tickets, administer the sedative they knock her out with in the inevitable ‘rich, creamy milk’ and the hard-bitten female gang member knits when on duty.

Am I alone in kind of liking Miss Bubb? Or at least liking that she was apparently the only CS staff member ever to be more interested in academic results than in preventing the girls getting TB? (When really, is the best thing to do against a highly infectious disease to collect a lot of ‘delicate’ girls with close family members who actually have TB and keep them in the same building?)

Me too. Mary Lou is a complete pain in the butt. I'd be cutting off her Kenwigses during hobbies club, accidentally on purpose.