# Set-Piece Intensity Audit - Chapter 14

Set piece audited: catalog handoff as discovery-mechanism arming.

- STAKES VISIBLE - evidence: Theo knows the catalogs are dangerous enough to rationalize: "Public documents... There was nothing in a public document that wasn't public." The reader knows the later acknowledgment threat from the bible/card.
- PRESSURE ESCALATES - evidence: label question -> Odile "All of them" -> June asks to take the stack -> Theo chooses the tote -> blank returned column.
- CHARACTER ATTEMPTS COST SOMETHING - evidence: Theo's safest alternative is named and rejected: "He could flag the useful pages..." / "`There's a bag.`"
- OBJECT PRESSURE IS SPECIFIC - evidence: "nine catalogs," "gray spines," "paper slip," "canvas tote," "clean dustless rectangle." The danger is not abstract.
- NO GRANDSTANDING - strongest over-intensity candidate: "Then he let go." It survives because it is a literal tote transfer and not a speech.
- EXIT ON LIVE CONSEQUENCE - evidence: "*Catalogs (9) - J. Park - out Thurs 11/19*" with returned column blank.

Chapter verdict: `INTENSITY-EARNED`.

REVISION ORDERS: none.
