The subtext is, “This might make you uncomfortable and that’s okay, it’s supposed to.
Not only is that a brilliant tactic to ensure that kids will absolutely want to read those books (my grandpa convinced me to drink milk by pretending to cry when I “stole” his glass) it also sets up their expectations for what’s to come. The 11th book, The Grim Grotto begins with a description of the water cycle, which Snicket calls boring, but a far better way to spend one’s time than “learning what became of the Baudelaires as the rushing waters of the Stricken Stream carried them away from the mountains.” In the first line of the first A Series of Unfortunate Events novel, The Bad Beginning, author Lemony Snicket warns the reader, “If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book.” Each new entry after that includes some such warning, each more dire (and linguistically elaborate) than the last.
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