Sugar bowl (A Series of Unfortunate Events)

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A Series of Unfortunate Events entities
The Sugar Bowl
Film portrayal	None
First mentioned	The Hostile Hospital (indirectly mentioned in The Ersatz Elevator)
Possessed by	Unknown (Suspected that Lemony Snicket probably has it currently, though it was once in the hands of Beatrice and Esmé)

The Sugar Bowl (occasionally known as the "Vessel for Disaccharides" or V.F.D.) is a mysterious plot device from A Series of Unfortunate Events.

It was first mentioned by name in The Hostile Hospital (although it's indirectly mentioned in The Ersatz Elevator by Esme Squalor) in which Lemony Snicket ponders whether it was necessary to have stolen it from Esmé Squalor. In Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, it becomes apparent that it contains an object of great power or danger, and is the target of both sides of V.F.D. It is also possible that the sugar bowl contains an unknown object that has the power to possibly overthrow V.F.D enemies when acquired. There are many mentions of the sugar bowl and Count Olaf seems to be pursuing it for an important reason and so are the Baudelaires, although they have no idea why it's so important.

Lemony Snicket's narration has been pivotal in exploring the sugar bowl's relevance to the overall plot. He has indicated that he and his lover Beatrice stole the sugar bowl. According to Esmé Squalor, it was hers and Beatrice stole it from her.

In Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, on pages 84 through 85, there is a letter from the Vineyard of Fragrant Drapes to Mr. Snicket, congratulating him on his wedding with Beatrice, however there is a secret encoded in the letter by use of the Sebald code, and it states:

Hello. If you are alive do not come here. The Count will burn you and Beatrice. Stay away.

The letter mentions that the sugar bowls will all be in place at their wedding.

Then, on pages 87 through 88, there is a very similar message to Jerome Squalor congratulating him on his marriage to Esmé Squalor, however the words that were used to display the message to Snicket were gone, and it was just an ordinary letter. It also stated that the Vineyard, sadly, could not supply the sugar bowls they requested. This could explain why Esmé said the sugar bowl was hers and Beatrice stole it from her, however she said the sugar bowl, singular, not plural, and the Vineyard mentioned multiple sugar bowls.

In The Slippery Slope, on page 101 when, in a letter to his sister, Kit Snicket, Lemony tells her that her "suggestion...that a tea set would be a handy place to hide anything important and small...has turned out to be correct." A sugar bowl is one of the parts of a tea set.

During the burning of the V.F.D. headquarters in the Mortmain Mountains in The Slippery Slope, a brave volunteer threw the bowl out the window into the Stricken Stream, knowing it would wash away and be saved from the villains. With this action the volunteer hoped the sugar bowl would be in safe hands.

In The Grim Grotto, Klaus Baudelaire and Captain Widdershins believed it to have washed into the Gorgonian Grotto, but when the grotto was explored, the bowl was found to have already been removed.

In The Penultimate Peril, the sugar bowl was brought to the Hotel Denouement by V.F.D. crows. The plan, on the villains' part, was to capture it by harpooning the crows, but due to the quick actions of Dewey Denouement, a plan was put in place to prevent the villains from securing it. The volunteers and villains originally thought it had fallen into the laundry room, but the Baudelaires later conclude that the sugar bowl had fallen into the pond. However, in a twist, Snicket implies that someone - possibly himself - has retrieved the bowl from the pond and carried it away by taxi shortly before the destruction of the hotel.

At the conclusion of the final book in the series,The End, it is still not known what has happened to the sugar bowl or why it is so important. It is also mentioned in The Dismal Dinner that a sugar bowl was passed around at the Baudelaire Parents' fourth-to-last dinner party and it may be possible that it was somehow linked to the fire that destroyed their home. It is hinted that it may contain horseradish, or some other antidote to the Medusoid Mycellium, but even if that is the case, it still remains a mystery why it is so important to V.F.D. and the villains.

Finally, it is altogether possible that the sugar bowl is merely a MacGuffin plot device, meaning that the contents of it are actually completely irrelevant, and that its function is simply to be a much sought-after object that motivates characters and drives the story along.