The Infinite Jest Liveblog: What Happened, Pt. 1

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TL;DR

Capstone of Fiction Advocate's "Words, Words, Words" liveblog (Aug 2012): a character-by-character inventory of where everyone stands at p. 981, followed by a sober consensus reconstruction of the missing year. Valuable less for original theory than as a balanced synthesis that flags which Swartz conclusions are solid and which are "debatable," and for collecting DFW's own statements that an ending exists.

Key claims

Adds a second authorial statement to Swartz's 1996 quote — DFW to the Boston Phoenix, 1997: "Plot wise, the book doesn't come to a resolution... it's supposed to stop and then kind of hum and project. Musically and emotionally, it's a pitch that seemed right."
Gately: the closing beach scene is his relived rock bottom, a "harsh rebirth" image (emerging from the warm liquid womb of the drugs onto a cold beach, tide way out) — not his death; he's dreaming it in his hospital bed. Moats wonders (without textual proof) whether the hospital gave him painkillers against his uncommunicative will, which would explain dreaming massive doses.
Hal: everyone agrees he's feeling DMZ-like effects (the Ethel-Merman-convict parallel). Three live possibilities: (1) endogenous synthesis — mold incident + weed withdrawal + Interdependence Day sugar feeding the digestive-tract DMZ (credits Schmidt); (2) Pemulis dosed the toothbrush out of anger; (3) the wraith dosed the toothbrush. Moats leans wraith: Pemulis's stash is missing when he goes for it, Hal never left the toothbrush unattended, and the wraith demonstrably moves things at ETA (and possibly left the bathroom window open).
Notes the first chapter implies things return to relative "normal" for the Incandenzas by Year of Glad — no mention of Avril disappearing or Orin dying offered as excuses for Hal's grades, which there would have been.
John Wayne: confidently an AFR plant at ETA (with Poutrincourt and possibly Avril); in Y.o.G. he "would have won" the WhataBurger but couldn't play — the AFR "does something" to him after he stands watch at the grave.
Orin: holder of a master copy (the geography-of-copies argument); breaks under the 1984-style roach interrogation, "Do it to her! Do it to her!" — the "her" fuels the Avril-is-Luria-P. speculation, which Moats calls "sick and gross, but interesting" and ultimately rejects (Avril too genuinely neurotic; the identification adds nothing).
The Entertainment master ends up with the AFR (from Orin, or possibly via the Antitois) — "the 'bad guys' actually win in the end of Infinite Jest."
The anti-Entertainment: may not exist at all; quotes Marathe — "Of this anti-film that antidotes the seduction of the Entertainment we have no evidence except craziness of rumors."
"Mario is fine." (Full character entry.)
Reconstruction: Hal hospitalized (escaping the AFR raid on ETA) → bed next to Gately (Otis P. Lord's old spot) → Joelle links them → grave-dig with Wayne, too late → AFR deploys the Entertainment, ends Subsidized Time and the Gentle administration (the ultra-mach fighter, p. 16) → Hal's condition worsens into the Year of Glad interview.
Why no written ending: another 1,000 pages would have been needed; the fracture completes the book's method; the loop makes the novel itself an "endless entertainment... with annular fusion" (Finnegans Wake echo); and the omitted events "are not what the book is really about" — set-up for Pt. 2.

Themes

Entertainment (the master as geopolitical weapon; novel-as-loop); addiction/recovery (Gately's rebirth reading); family (Incandenza fallout); Quebecois separatism (AFR victory); communication (Hal's deterioration).

Cross-references

Synthesizes swartz-ij-ending (calls it "the best explanation I've seen so far") and schmidt-notes-on-ij; also cites Ezra Klein's "Infinite Jest as Infinite Jest."
Continued in fiction-advocate-what-happened-pt2 (the "real meaning").
Comment thread (kcpajor) usefully itemizes the standard newcomer confusions: master-vs-antidote in JOI's head, the AFR/Entertainment timeline, where the Hal-next-to-Gately certainty comes from.

Notable passages

"If this isn't rock bottom, it's hard to imagine any experience tough enough to chip down to lower level of shittiness than watching your friend get his eyes sewn open while you lay in a puddle of piss and M&M dye listening to Linda McCartney vocal tracks." — Moats on Gately's bottom

"Either way, they get a hold of it, which means that — as far as the standard plot progression goes — the 'bad guys' actually win in the end of Infinite Jest." — Moats

"MARIO INCANDENZA — Mario is fine." — Moats