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They are where the real power lies. The ones who decide things. The ones everyone are so, so scared of. Everyone - from both sides of the schism and everywhere in between, volunteers and their enemies alike, and everyone too complicated to categorize into these two groups, Esme quickly learns. The volunteers go on full alert when this duo is mentioned - not even by names, not even by initials. In fact, so far no one has been willing to tell Esme what exactly are those two people's initials. Olaf and his lackies aren't better. Olaf is terrified of them, Esme can see plain as day. He doesn't even disguise it well. He seems to revert back to a teenager, a young boy trying to please certain adults in authority, when he's in front of them. Which isn't like him, really. Usually even when he's afraid he at least likes to hide it behind false bravado.
Even Georgina is tightlipped about the two. While at least G doesn't seem terrified of them, while she displays a mild distaste only, her reluctance to speak of them is fairly telling - or is it, really, Esme muses to herself, thoughtfully. Georgina Orwell is a woman who generally considers herself superior to everyone else and finds no interest in speaking of trivial matters because she considers that a waste of her precious time, and the category of trivial matters to her is a wide one. Ranging from Beatrice Baudelaire to VFD in general to fashion (terrible taste, but Esme can forgive her for that). So it's possible that Georgina's succinct manner isn't anything out of ordinary. Not too much, anyway. It's harder to tell with Georgina, Esme will admit that. She is her own mystery.
But does Olaf's attitude mean that The Sinister Duo really is that scary? Do volunteers refusing to address them even by initials - which is their favorite way of addressing someone, so Esme's learned - mean something? Is that all just exaggerated? Are they really that terrifying? Is it just some urban legend, some myth, something overblown, out of proportions? Esme knows too well how a well-curated reputation can tell a story that's not exactly false, but also far from accurate. Propaganda is important. Controlling the narrative is everything. This is why VFD placed so many of their people in Daily Punctilio, this is why it's important that Esme has Geraldine Julienne in her pocket.
And Olaf's behavior could be explained by him knowing them since he was young, and it's possible that something happened left an impression. Maybe it's easier to revert back to your youth when in front of people you've known since childhood, or something. Maybe they're not really that terrifying, despite the way Esme can observe how Olaf's attitude just changes, around them.
So, if both Olaf's attitude and the volunteers attitude can be explained away, the question comes to - are they really that dangerous? Is it really too much risk for Esme to try to approach them, to gain power, and the access of sugar bowl through them? They're where the power lies. They're the ones who can help her get the sugar bowl back. Cozy up to them, and you get to enjoy the power on the throne, too.
It's tempting.
It's well within reach.
Of course, Esme realizes that perhaps the fact that they hold so much power itself is proof of how dangerous they are, is an indication of how scary they can be. That's true, she is willing to acknowledge that. But Esme herself is not bad at this game either, plus she has a great weapon at her disposal - herself. Her beauty. Her ruthlessness. She's very good at playing people like chess pieces, if she does say so herself. Manipulation is her trick of trade.
And not to boast, Esme thinks she has been quite successful at seducing older women so far. Various rich ladies in The City are absolutely taken with her - she remembers Mrs Squalor, the mother of Jerome Squalor who simply adored Esme. Lovely lady, may she rest in peace. Esme appreciates the large fortune she and her husband had left behind for their useless son to inherit.
Even Georgina Orwell, who the volunteers seem to all dislike, who the volunteers all had scathing opinions of, calling her "evil optometrist who would do anything" - well, even Georgina had fallen for Esme, had she not? Ruthless, coldly calculative, unsociable Georgina who managed to look down on everyone with a condescending attitude and still had people on both sides begging her to help them out with her tools of trade occasionally. Even Georgina, the woman who everyone said had no heart - she turned out to like Esme, did she not? The way she kissed Esme, the way her hands touched Esme's body, the way Esme was able to make the perpetually cool optometrist light up a fire in her eyes, looking at Esme with something close to hunger. Of wanting to devour her whole.
Esme has always been good with older women. They like her, simple as that. Even the ones that terrify everyone else. Even the powerful ones, even the horrible ones, even the ruthless ones. They all adore Esme, or want to fuck her. And after she can get them to, it's all too easy to get them to do more for her. Other people had to hire Georgina with an insane amount of money to get her to hypnotize someone for a job, and Esme just needs to lie down and throws Georgina a seductive smile and she knows she's got her. It's easy.
It has always been easy.
So how hard to seduce can The Woman With Hair But No Beard be, really? How hard would it be to convince her, to help Esme, to give her the sugar bowl? To share some power with her? To increase the influence Esme has in The City? To rise up in the rankings of The City's financial advisor? To kill Esme's enemies?
If Esme plays her cards right, she bets it's not that difficult.
Esme has always had a way with older women, after all.
They all adore her.
She's confident this will work.