# Chapter 19 Initial Draft Assessment

Target: `output/drafts/claude/chapter_19.round_01.md`

## Verdict

ACCEPT AS BASE WITH REQUIRED CONTINUITY REPAIRS.

The Claude draft gets the chapter's core engine right: Theo tries to make absence into setup, the cohort sees the empty place before facts are explained, Luis says the direct thing Mara would usually smooth, Odile materially relocates Theo to the empty side, and the close gives `After Class` an object consequence rather than a speech.

## Blocking Issues Before Integration

- Continuity contradiction: the draft invents four 30x48 joint canvases. Ch13/Ch14 bind the final joint pieces to 16x20 or smaller, and June/Theo specifically chose a twelve-by-sixteen ground.
- Subject contradiction: the draft uses `The room on a Tuesday`; the established subject is `The room after class` / eventual `After Class`.
- Calendar slip: `every Tuesday since September` should be October.
- Raw mechanical gate failed open=5: `let himself`, one-sentence paragraph CAP, echo-line `He had... He had`, `the architecture of`, and echo-line `It was small. It was`.
- Dialogue/content watch: Luis's `Something broke` is direct but uses `something` as a placeholder; repair to a specific line that still does not reveal facts.

## Integration Plan

Use Claude's draft as scene base. Repair the ground size and staging around the long worktable, keep Theo from reaching around a too-large canvas, preserve the Luis/Mara/Odile beats, and run the post-integration gate before external audits.
