#Deep research that holds together

Six entity types, four phases, batched processing. The plan was written before any chapter was touched; it survived almost unchanged. The same skeleton works for any long-form work.

# Moby Dick Literary Analysis. Basic Memory Skills Test Case

## Schemas

| Schema           | Observation Categories                                       | Relation Types                                                  |
|------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| Character        | trait, motivation, arc, quote, appearance, relationship,     | appears_in, contrasts_with, allied_with, commands, symbolizes,  |
|                  | symbolism, fate                                              | associated_with                                                 |
| Theme            | definition, manifestation, evolution, counterpoint, quote,   | embodied_by, contrasts_with, reinforced_by, explored_in,        |
|                  | interpretation                                               | expressed_through                                               |
| Chapter          | summary, event, tone, technique, quote, significance,        | features, set_in, explores, contains, employs, follows,         |
|                  | foreshadowing                                                | precedes, parallels                                             |
| Location         | description, atmosphere, symbolism, significance, geography  | setting_for, associated_with, symbolizes, contains, part_of     |
| Symbol           | meaning, appearance, ambiguity, interpretation, quote,       | represents, associated_with, appears_in, contrasts_with,        |
|                  | evolution                                                    | located_at                                                      |
| LiteraryDevice   | definition, usage, effect, example, significance             | used_in, characterizes, expresses, related_to                   |

## Phases

Phase 0: Setup    -> project, schemas, directory structure
Phase 1: Seed     -> stub notes for ~15 major characters, ~10 themes,
                     ~8 locations, ~8 symbols
Phase 2: Process  -> chapter-by-chapter, batches of ~10
Phase 3: Cross-ref-> enrich arcs, add parallels, write analysis notes
Phase 4: Validate -> schema_validate per type, fix drift
Phase 5: Visualize-> canvas files for character webs, theme maps

## Expected scale: ~221 notes, ~1,815 relations.

One of the six schemas. Same picoschema format we use everywhere else in Basic Memory: required fields, enums, optional fields, observation conventions, relation conventions. Swap the field names and you have a schema for any entity in any corpus.

---
title: Character
type: schema
entity: Character
version: 1
schema:
  role(enum): "[protagonist, antagonist, supporting, minor],
    character's narrative role"
  description: string, brief character description
  first_appearance?: string, chapter of first appearance
  status?(enum): "[alive, dead, unknown], character status at end of work"
  rank?: string, formal rank or title
  crew_role?: string, role aboard ship or in group
settings:
  validation: warn
---

# Character

Schema for character entity notes in Moby-Dick analysis.

## Observations
- [convention] Major characters in characters/major/, minor in characters/minor/
- [convention] Observation categories: trait, motivation, arc, quote,
  appearance, relationship, symbolism, fate
- [convention] Relations: appears_in, contrasts_with, allied_with,
  commands, symbolizes, associated_with

The Ahab note is what compounds. The opening prose is the human analysis; the observations underneath are 50+ chapter-attributed beats with quotes, written incrementally as each batch of chapters was processed. Ask your AI about Ahab's arc and it walks this. The excerpt below is 14 of those observations; the live note has many more.

---
title: Captain Ahab
type: character
role: protagonist
description: Captain of the Pequod, monomaniacally obsessed with the
  White Whale
first_appearance: Chapter 28
status: dead
rank: Captain
---

Ahab is the greatest tragic figure in American literature — a claim
I make without qualification. What makes him inexhaustible is that
he is simultaneously right and wrong. He is right that the universe
operates through masks, that something vast and possibly malevolent
lurks behind the surfaces of things. He is wrong that it can be
fought. His tragedy is not that he is deluded but that his insight
is genuine and his response to it catastrophic.

# Captain Ahab

## Observations
- [trait] Monomaniacal, charismatic, defiant, tortured
- [appearance] Scarred, one-legged with whalebone prosthetic, livid
  white scar on face
- [motivation] Revenge against Moby Dick who took his leg

## Relations
- commands [[The Pequod]]
- hunts [[The White Whale]]
- contrasts_with [[Starbuck]]
- contrasts_with [[Ishmael]]
- associated_with [[Fedallah]]

- [arc] Ch.16: Introduced entirely through others' descriptions —
  absent, unseen, already generating dread
- [arc] Ch.28: Appears on deck — "a crucifixion in his face; in all
  the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some mighty woe"
- [arc] Ch.36: The Quarter-Deck oath — nails doubloon, names Moby
  Dick, overpowers Starbuck with the "pasteboard masks" speech,
  administers blood oath from harpoon sockets
- [quote] Ch.36: "All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard
  masks... If man will strike, strike through the mask!"
- [arc] Ch.41: Full backstory — dashed at Moby Dick with a knife,
  lost his leg; "his torn body and gashed soul bled into one another"
- [trait] Ch.41: "all my means are sane, my motive and my object mad"
- [arc] Ch.99: Reads the doubloon as a mirror of himself — "all are
  Ahab" — the solipsism of obsession
- [arc] Ch.119: Greatest soliloquy: addresses fire as "clear spirit,"
  declares "thy right worship is defiance"
- [arc] Ch.125: Takes Pip's hand — "I feel prouder leading thee by
  thy black hand, than though I grasped an Emperor's!" — his deepest
  moment of tenderness
- [arc] Ch.128: Refuses Captain Gardiner's plea to search for his
  lost son — "I will not do it. Even now I lose time." Most morally
  damning moment.
- [arc] Ch.132: The Symphony — drops a tear into the Pacific, nearly
  yields, then: "Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts
  this arm?"
- [arc] Ch.135: "From hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake
  I spit my last breath at thee" — darts the harpoon, hemp line
  catches his neck
- [fate] Killed by his own harpoon-line catching his neck —
  "voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim"

# ... ~35 more chapter-attributed observations across the full work,
# plus a parallel structure on every other major character and theme.

The same note in the app. Note Context sidebar shows the local graph (83 connected notes), the outgoing relations Ahab declared (commands The Pequod, hunts The White Whale, contrasts_with Ishmael and Starbuck), and the incoming relations every other entity declared back at him. The bidirectional graph emerged automatically. Nothing was double-entered.

Captain Ahab at the center of the Moby-Dick knowledge graph. Every gold node is a chapter that features him; every blue, green, and grey node is a character, theme, or symbol he relates to. Click any of them and the graph re-centers. This is the shape your AI walks when you ask a question that spans the whole work.