Someone is collecting evidence flawlessly and concluding nothing: the catalog has become a substitute for the question.

The method is inside the novel. The OSINT rule, catalog the weirdness, model last, is literally Piranesi's daily practice: he is the cataloger of the surreal. Which puts the method on trial: what does the perfect cataloger fail to see? Piranesi records everything and understands almost nothing about his own situation, the Other's exploitation, his stolen identity, the dead. The catalog is complete and the model is absent. Data without theory is not neutrality; it is a different kind of blindness. The book asks: what good is a perfect evidence ledger if you never ask what the evidence is for?