# Codex Post-Batch4 Reassessment

Date: 2026-07-05

## Verdict

`MACRO-FREEZE / LINE PASS`.

Claude's post-Batch4 full-book reassessment agrees with the emerging Codex diagnosis: Batches 1-4 repaired the hard canon/form issues, materially strengthened ensemble originality, gave Odile a cost vector, and reduced the middle Tasker/care-move repetition. The remaining high-leverage work is not a new chapter or resurrection of the old Ch25-Ch28 expansion map. Another broad expansion would likely soften the compressed class-only engine and risk the reading-guide failure mode of cozy inertness.

## Accepted Findings

1. Ch24 Odile-cost landing needs a meaning-level re-angle. The page tear should read as June taking Odile's archive/proof/version away from her, not only as June claiming her own meaning.
2. Ch18 remains the weakest engagement stretch because its rupture aftermath is largely montage. The right repair is tightening and sharpening, not adding a June/Theo scene.
3. Ch10's jar-care echo spends the device before Ch19 pays it. Vary or cut the Ch10 explicit jar exchange.
4. Book-wide "squared/already-straight" control gestures and significance flags remain over-distributed. Preserve only the instances doing specific character or plot work.

## Protected Material

- Ch16 fear canvases.
- Ch17 discovery and attribution-revised analogy.
- Ch7 racked-portrait asymmetry.
- Withheld-rescue / "don't be useful" through-line.
- Mara/Luis un-translation payoff.
- June's stay decision before Theo's confession.

## Length Position

The manuscript remains below the 75K premise floor, but the fresh post-batch read argues the current shortfall is a business/positioning risk rather than an unresolved craft promise. This does not justify final assembly by itself: the final report must still explicitly mark the length risk and the user-facing market question. The next high-leverage work is Batch 5 line repair, then a fresh cold read focused on whether Odile's cost now registers and whether the compressed draft can be defended as a final candidate or must remain a checkpoint.

## Next Batch

Phase 8 Batch 5:

1. Re-angle Ch24 ledger tear.
2. Remove/vary Ch10 jar duplicate and protect Ch19 jar payoff.
3. Cut or localize nonessential squared/already-straight gestures and significance flags across Ch01/04/07/10/13/18/22/24.
4. Tighten Ch18 montage without adding a new couple scene.
