Saint James Infirmary 158: Going through the Drawers

[GodWilling]

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[GodWilling]

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[jmundt29]

Okay, I'm still having trouble with your reading of the situation.  I looked back at 114 (took me awhile to find it) and you're right, we never hear him give Adrian's last name...though it would be interesting to find out if and how he ever learned Adrian's last name.  Seems like Adrian's gotten the sort of Don Draper ubiquitous reputation around town since Dani reached for The Watch.

That said, I highly doubt that Derek was seconds away from stumbling onto The Watch.  Dani only reached for it to somooth things over after she fell out of the closet during what was supposed to be Adrian and Erin's first time together.  This happened accidentally because Adrian let things percolate and didn't try to control them.  In order for Dani to have gone into Maitresse mode to retrieve the Watch, Derek would have had to display the patience to NOT try to direct Dani once she was under his control.  Patience is not Derek's strong suit.  It's unclear when Dani would have ever escaped Derek's rathole of a house to allow her other programming to kick in.

[GodWilling]

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[jmundt29]

We have no idea when Z's first visit to New York was.  That could help us put some of this in context.

I guess I misstated my point again.  Adrian stumbled into the Harem because at the beginning, he just went with it.  The most active thing he did during the Harem formation was push Dani into the closet in a feeble attempt to hide the weird serendipity from Erin.  He was mostly passive and the construct enveloped him.

Derek was active to the point that his role in the "plan" was completely useless.  He set off the triggers, but instead of waiting for developments (as one could argue Adrian did) or asking questions of pliant subjects so as togather information that he could asemble into some sort of report or could use to locate the item and the person he was there to locate, he just decided to have fun.  Adrian has two big advantages over Derek

1. Location--he lives at SJI and so doesn't have to direct things to come up with an opportunity and
2. He doesn't allow his own fantasies or his own impression of his own power to cut off experience.  He still doesn't.  Even to this point, the most proactive thing he did was unveil the Hypnocock gag.  We have yet to see if the questions about Raven or his answers to them were taken seriously.

[mns_95125]

I hate to ruin a really entertaining hypothesis, but that one is so good I just have to say: Damn, I wish I had thought of that.

Wow, high praise indeed.

It's an interesting theory, but I'm glad you didn't think of it or use a variation of it because under all the layers, after all the knots were untied, Adrian would be a particularly fiendish and ingenious version of Bertram.

It wouldn't necessarily have to work out that way.  Adrian could, on discovering who he used to be, decide that he didn't want to be that person any more.  That would turn it into a story of redemption.  "What can change the nature of a man" was a great theme for Planescape: Torment and I suspect it would work equally well in hypnofetish porn.    Still, a moot point unless Daphne wants to steal the idea for some other comic.

Derek was active to the point that his role in the "plan" was completely useless.  He set off the triggers, but instead of waiting for developments (as one could argue Adrian did) or asking questions of pliant subjects so as togather information that he could asemble into some sort of report or could use to locate the item and the person he was there to locate, he just decided to have fun.

I still believe that if Derek had simply asked Danielle about the watch she would have told him.  Claudia told him to (1) Use the trigger, (2) ask about the watch, and then (3) he could bang them as a reward.  I think the essence of Derek's mistake was to do this in the wrong order.  He would (1) Use the trigger, (2) bang the woman, and only then (3) ask about the watch.  For all the other girls this didn't cause any problems because they didn't know anything.  With Danielle it was a big deal.  He didn't get a chance to ask her the first time he used the trigger because Adrian swooped in and took her away.  He had plenty of time at his house but he wanted to bang her first, and Adrian showed up and took her away a second time before he could ask.  No wonder Claudia's pissed with him -- everything would have worked if Derek hadn't been thinking with his dick.

I was really impressed with the idea that Derek nearly was literally seconds away from figuring it out but for Adrian's intervention back around issue #20 - I hadn't read that (still confusing to me) sequence in that way, and I think it's a good way to look at it.

On reflection I think "seconds away" might have been overstating it.  A competent agent, who prioritized doing his job over having hot monkey sex with a hot blonde sex slave, would have been seconds away.  Derek, not being such an agent, had different priorities.  But that's why Claudia is ticked off at him: if he'd just followed orders he'd have made the connection -- if not in #21 then in #70.

I take your second point - but we don't know whether Dani would be able to answer that question directly.

In #73, Adrian asks a triggered Danielle "You know how to use the watch right, Dani?" and she says "Oui, Master!  Whatever you wish of me!"  That's pretty close to a direct answer.  Not 100% dispositive since Danielle knew that Adrian knew at that point, but it's suggestive.

One point that occurred to me. Did Zenon get Amy to become one of his patients after he came back from New York? She had the same trigger as the others - which would suggest so. He made her available for Derek. But wouldn't he have known enough about her to know she couldn't be the Watch girl?

I take this as evidence in support of my hypothesis that Zenon doesn't know about the watch.  He isn't putting triggers only in women who might have fled the New York harem with the watch -- he's putting triggers in all the women.  That makes perfect sense if he doesn't know about the watch.

[jmundt29]

However, here's the thing.  I don't think that Derek did the steps in the wrong order, I think he forgot there were supposed to be the three steps you outlined.

His entire MO indicates that he thought the entire procedure

1. Use the trigger

2. Bang the women

lather, rinse, repeat.  IF 2. gets boring, then

3. Think of "inventive" games to play with the women while you bang them.

In fact, he got so carried away with step 2, that at least with Jacqui, he forgot to implement step 1A., namely, "wait until the Doc implants the trigger before you try to activate it."

If Derek had remembered to ask about The Watch at all, I'd have expected that either

1. Multiple members of the second cohort would have mentioned it during or after The Ring

"we just thought the hypnocock thing was part of the game.  Odd that he'd ask about that Watch though." etc. or

2. Cait would have mentioned it to someone on Harem night or

3. Laura and Amy would have dsicussed Derek's interest in the Watch with Jacqui during the first Girls Night as an additional consideration to their lives in the Harem, or

4. Certainly, Amy would have brought it up as an asideduring her pillow talk with Adrian.

Maybe Laura's about to mention it on her date with Adrian.

[GodWilling]

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[Haight]

It's hard to say what's going on with Adrian - his family clearly has a history of being associated with the MC thing, and it's weird that he's so unaware of it.  

As far as Derek goes, he's not exactly doing something extremely unusual for someone in his position.  What my question really is is why does Claudia have to work through catspaws and not do dirty work herself?  She certainly seems competent.

[mns_95125]

Indeed, Derek appears to be one of the last people you'd trust with The Watch: "Ah, Derek, you have it - good. Now... What are you doing...?"

It may not be that simple to use the watch.  Marliese was the one who 'figured it out' on the Night of the Watch, and her apparent connection to Rain makes it likely she knows more than she lets on.

[GodWilling]

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