Four Odysseys on two axes
DIMENSION 16 · COMPARATIVE · HOMER — WILSON 2017 — JOYCE 1922 · AND A REGISTER OF REPORTS ON NOLAN 2026, OFF BOTH AXES
CONFIDENCE (ANCHOR A5) — every claim about Nolan is second-hand. The first source was written one day after the film opened, from reviews; later July 2026 reporting has been added, and is fuller but still not the film. Its markings — High / Medium / Partial / Unconfirmed — govern every Nolan claim. The honest form of the film's fidelity is a sentence, not a number: journalism reports substantial fidelity with named departures (Sinon imported from Virgil's Aeneid in place of Achilles, the elided hanging of the slave girls, an ending in which Odysseus is exiled rather than celebrated); no measurement was made and none can be (C-31). Homer, Wilson and Joyce placements rest on the works themselves; the film holds no placement. Corrected 4 August 2026: this paragraph said the three reported departures "push his fidelity to the low edge of ~70%; the marker has not moved, because second-hand evidence does not earn that precision." A percentage asserts that a measurement was made, and none was — the ~70% marker is demoted from a number to the sentence above, and the film's point is removed from the chart. Its reports are held in the register below.
| Work | Fidelity to plot/genre | Interior orientation | Mechanism |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homer | 100% — the source | externalised; kleos and xenia | oral epic; character through action |
| Wilson (2017) | 100% — invents no plot | high, without touching plot | register — plain diction, refusal of archaism |
| Nolan (2026) | journalism reports substantial fidelity with named departures; no measurement was made and none can be (C-31) | reported to reach for interiority by adding content; no band is assigned — a second-hand term takes no position on a measured axis | adaptation — new scenes, reframed motive (reported) |
| Joyce (1922) | ~0% — plot abandoned | maximal, structural | genre transformation — myth as scaffolding |
Corrected 4 August 2026: the film's row read "~70% — keeps genre, rewrites motive" and "medium-high, by adding content", and the caption read "THE SAME DATA, AS THE DOCUMENT STATES IT." Both cells were positions on measured axes held by second-hand evidence; both are withdrawn, and the row now carries sentences — a percentage asserts that a measurement was made, and none was (joint session 09).
The register of reports — Nolan, 2026
STRUCK 4 AUGUST 2026 — a separately-denominated record of the reports this project holds ABOUT Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey (2026): each reported claim with the status wording under which it was held when the register was struck, and the date it entered. It is not a fifth register class — base document 00 defines the four registers, and that architecture is the base document's and the author's; this is a denominated record on dimension 16's existing surfaces, kept at deliberately unequal layout to the three plotted works: no chart, no axis, a plain table. The record of record is the project's data file data/nolan-reports.json, which also holds the address each claim occupied when the register was struck; this section mirrors it. The rule published with the register: no second-hand term may occupy a position on any measured axis in any register — HTML, PDF, deck or diagram. The count of reports standing when the register was struck is the count of rows below — counted from the entries, stored nowhere as a bare number, because a figure held unchanged while reports accumulate "does not read as held; it reads as confirmed" (joint session 09).
| Reported claim | Status, as held | Entered |
|---|---|---|
| Nolan's overall placement: ~70% fidelity ('keeps genre, rewrites motive'), medium-high interiority 'by adding content', mechanism 'adaptation — new scenes, reframed motive' | Placed 'from reports', not the film — the one point on the chart with a dashed ring, legend 'placement rests on reports, not the film'; every claim about Nolan is second-hand (anchor A5) | 18 July 2026 (comparative session; handoff written one day after the film opened) |
| Sinon imported from Virgil's Aeneid in place of Achilles in Hades (deck adds the casting: Elliot Page as Sinon) | 'Newly reported departure' / 'reported late' — pushes fidelity toward the low edge of the stated ~70% without moving the marker; deck plate footed 'From reports, not the film.' | 19 July 2026 (commentary admitted under revised anchor A17, C-23) |
| The hanging of the slave girls elided, displaced onto a single betrayer | 'Nolan is reported to remove the scene altogether' — second-hand; one of the three late departures; contrasted with Wilson's checkable half ('the translator is the one who will not soften it'), asymmetry expressly marked: 'Wilson's half is verifiable, Nolan's half is second-hand' | 19 July 2026 (via A17 commentary) |
| An ending in which Odysseus is exiled rather than celebrated ('reclamation, then expulsion') | 'Newly reported departure' — pushes fidelity to the low edge of ~70%, marker not moved; deck plate 'The ending' footed 'From reports, not the film.' | 19 July 2026 (via A17 commentary) |
| Calypso's arc: erasure then release — she gives the lotus so he forgets, and lets him go once he remembers what he is returning to | 'Narrowed, not closed' — 'That narrows the question but does not close it'; then closed as permanently unresolved with this as its last known state (C-31) | 19 July 2026 (via A17 commentary) |
| 'We are the Sea People' — the film's central invention | Deck-only plate, captioned 'Nolan, 2026 · the central invention · from reports, not the film' | not dated in the deck; Nolan section governed by the 18-19 July 2026 reporting |
| Wilson has confirmed she was not consulted by Nolan (the admitted commentary's most load-bearing claim) | 'Held at Medium permanently' — cannot be supported from the commentary's own citations, whose only Wilson interview predates the film by nine years; 'the interview would have to exist and be found, and neither is this project's to pursue' (C-31) | 19 July 2026 |
| Nolan reads Homer through Joyce (asserted by the admitted commentary) | 'The commentator's interpretation, not a source' — not treated as evidence (C-23, L-12); 'it closes nothing'; open question 4 is not closed by it | 19 July 2026 |
| The commentary presents nine departures where its own cited Vanity Fair piece names ten | Recorded as a defect of the relay: 'its selection is editorial' — the framing is the relayer's, not the source's | 19 July 2026 (C-30 correction context) |
| Agreement between handoff and commentary (both resting on July 2026 journalism) | Explicitly NOT corroboration: 'one ancestor counted twice, not two witnesses'; corrected by C-30 — the outlets named (Vanity Fair, GQ, TODAY.com) are the commentary's own, the handoff cites a different list, so the overlap is in KIND of source, not a shared citation; 'Nothing has been promoted on the grounds that two documents agree' (catch C-24, learning L-13) | C-24 escalated to L-13; C-30 correction 19 July 2026 |
The four questions, closed as permanently unresolved (C-31)
| Question | Last known state |
|---|---|
| Calypso's memory arc | Narrowed, not closed — reported as erasure then release: she gives the lotus so he forgets, and lets him go once he remembers what he is returning to; that narrowed the question without closing it |
| The Cattle of the Sun resolution | Stands — 'Remains thin.' |
| The Laestrygonian child's gender | Stands — 'Remains thin.' |
| Whether Nolan has ever mentioned Joyce | Stands — unevidenced; 'Nothing found.' The admitted commentary's assertion that Nolan reads Homer through Joyce is the commentator's interpretation, not a source, and it closes nothing |
The marker, its history
STATED — 18 July 2026: 'adds content · ~70%' on the chart, '~70% — keeps genre, rewrites motive' in the works table, inside a dashed gold ring whose legend read 'placement rests on reports, not the film'. HELD UNMOVED — 19 July 2026, when three late-reported departures pushed the reported fidelity toward the low edge of the stated ~70%: 'the marker was not moved, because second-hand evidence does not earn that precision, and it will not be moved now.' GROUND — second-hand evidence does not earn that precision, and the project consults no primary sources it does not hold: no screening of the film (C-31). DEMOTED — 4 August 2026, from a number to a sentence: a percentage asserts that a measurement was made, and none was (joint session 09). The full history, with the addresses the marker occupied, is in the register file.
The contrast, withdrawn
ADD AGAINST REMOVE — withdrawn as a finding, 4 August 2026, and restated as a question the evidence cannot close: the reported film was the sole occupant of the ADD pole, and with it removed the contrast has one example on one side — "that is not a comparative dimension; that is three cases and an anecdote" (joint session 09). Whether the film genuinely adds where Wilson and Joyce remove would need the film, and this project does not consult sources it does not hold (C-31).
The four-instruments finding
Published on this register per the chair's resolution of the author's item what-is-owed-the-twelve, clause (c), with the correction the verifier required. At the hanging of the twelve enslaved women, four instruments fail in the same direction: Homer counts the twelve and does not name them. Wilson's stated policy fails to reach her hardest scene — she writes 'these girls' at the hanging — and the refusal of a clean death is, in her rendering, TELEMACHUS's sentence, a killer's stated cruelty and not a translator's comment on her own practice. The reported film elides the hanging onto a single betrayer — reported, second-hand, permanently. And dimension 2's census could not reach the unnamed until the register of women drawn and never named was built. The blind spot is at the same coordinate every time: the woman who is owned, counted, and not named.