the on-air collapse: accidental vs. dosed
This asks what caused John Wayne's on-air collapse: an accidental self-dosing he mistook for something harmless, or something slipped to him by others. It is contested because the novel's two internal accounts of the incident disagree on the substance even as they agree he took a pill himself.
Adjudication
This crux has an adversarial ledger: Wayne, Avril, and the A.F.R.. The per-reading verdicts are below.
Theories on this crux
| Reading | Verdict |
|---|---|
| Wayne's fate & meltdown | favored |
Discussed in
- Community book club 2
- IJ Book Club Ep. 33 (S2 Ep 13): Hey Hal? — the bedside confession, the meetings hunt, footnote country (the fake equation, the Tenuate swap), and the Molly Notkin technical interview (pp. ~782–808)
- The Great Concavity Ep. 19: first-time Infinite Jest readers — Rachel Laird & Amy Peltier on finishing the book (recorded ~late summer 2016)