The Clipperton legend and the Clipperton Suite — the cautionary saga and the counselor mandate

texture · Year of the Whopper (~2002), Clipperton's 18th summer; the Suite standing thereafter

• When: Clipperton's tour reign is the last pre-Subsidized year into the Year of the Whopper; his on-grounds suicide is that first Subsidized summer; the sealed Suite stands thereafter
• What: The academy's darkest piece of lore. Eric Clipperton, an unaffiliated ("Ind.") junior, forced wins across the East-Coast tour by playing with a Glock 17 at his own temple, vowing to blow his brains out publicly if he ever lost — his first meaningless victory over E.T.A.'s Ross Reat at the just-opened Academy. When the new O.N.A.N.T.A. computer naively ranks his string of wins and makes him a sanctioned continental #1, Clipperton appears at the E.T.A. portcullis in desperate straits; JOI (over Schtitt's and Cantrell's objections) admits him and counsels him in a top-floor East-House room, where Clipperton — with Mario's borrowed head-mount Bolex recording — shoots himself for real. The room is sealed as the "Clipperton Suite," to which Schtitt still sends any junior who "whinges too loudly" as a meditation on the cost of goal-attainment. Struck retells the tale to new kids; the Fresno cyanide-Quik family is its ghastlier cousin — the twin rationale for the mandatory Ph.D. counselor (the useless Dr. Rusk) every accredited academy must keep. See JOI's timeline (event 14); Schtitt's timeline (event 11); Lyle's timeline (event 17); Pemulis's timeline (event 5).