In "The Vile Village", the Council of Elders meet the Baudelaire children during an assembly and ask who would watch over them. They got Hector to watch over them because nobody else wanted the job. When Count Olaf in the alias of Detective Dupin and Esmé Squalor in the alias of Officer Luciana frame the Baludelaires for the murder of "Count Olaf (who was actually Jacques Snicket), the Council of Elders sentences them to be burned at the stake. The Council of Elders join the villagers into pursuing the Baudelaires and the Quagmires even when Hector's mobile home appears in the sky. After someone sees Detective Dupin without his sunglasses, some members of the Council of Elders struggled with him to see if there is an eye-shaped tattoo on him where they got his green plastic shoe off. In addition, the Council of Elders are among those who get angry at Officer Luciana when she was discovered to have harmed a crow with one of the harpoons from the harpoon gun. After Count Olaf and Esmé escape on a motorcycle, a member of the Council of Elders tells the Baudelaires to stay put as they are still going to be burned at the stake for the rules they broke right after the villagers take the injured crow to the V.F.D. veterinarian.