Saint James Infirmary 569: Aide-mémoire.

Okay, very carefully I return. There's still a considerable bit of mystery surrounding the creation of the Watch. Jakob has a reputation for being reckless, careless, and vicious (per his brother and the survivors of his harem). We know he didn't make The Watch which is a really odd fact. It also seems that his initial technique was straightforward domination. So, at times he seems unimaginative. However, we are led to believe that the memory blocks in place around Pearl's memories and her artificial sex phobia were his plan and his design. Which speaks at the very least to sadism and cunning.

The thing about The Watch. I think we have Dani's memory of him using it on her, but mostly he seems to favor the crystals. Also, the persona Zenon triggered on The Night of the Watch seems to be the recruitment phase of Dani's role as "favorite" but her recruitment technique here seems MUCH different than the conditioning techniques we've seen from Jakob.

Additionally, Jakob hasn't been credited as the "designer" of the Watch (yet). It seems entirely possible that he wanted a watch housing to hide his toy (so that he could carry it around as the heir to a business empire that began with timepieces and no one would question it), and Dani used the directive to create an item with all sorts of bells and whistles. So, right now, I read it as Dani's brilliance and desperation combining with Jakob's rapacious appetites to start the chain reaction that is the story so far.