# Adversarial Register Audit - Chapter 16

id: adversarial_register | owner: codex | target: `output/chapters/chapter_16.md`

- `REGISTER-HOLDS - warm/precise/lightly comic` - comic opening is character-sourced (`"Theo. You're famous"` / `"It's a phone"`) and withdraws during the fear canvases.
- `REGISTER-HOLDS - no melodrama` - fear is carried through paint objects: `"The roller still loaded in its tray"` and `"the bulb over his blank ground"`.
- `REGISTER-HOLDS - no cleverness-as-obliqueness` - supply-table exchange is followable: catalogs offered/refused; confession withheld; layout substituted.
- `REGISTER-HOLDS - no cruelty` - cohort reactions stay careful: `"Mara folded her scarf twice..."`, `"Ben skipped zone three"`, no one jokes about the paintings.

Chapter verdict: `REGISTER-HELD`.

REVISION ORDERS: none.
