p. 173

YIELD TO THE MAN FALLING OFF THE CLIFF!
The Detectives are distracted when Ostrero begins yelling his surrender as he climbs down the cliff.
“I want to go back… my family.”
Pfeifer comments that he is a “spineless idiot,” and then, Ostrero is shot and killed instantly. His death is anticlimactic and insignificant as he falls of the cliff without motion or sound. It is clear that the group are being hunted, which S. comments is an age old relationship of hunters and the hunted. Within Ship of Theseus, the Detectives are the hunters while in the real world, Jen and Eric are the hunted as they continue their VMS research.

As noted by Eric, Ostrero turning back parallels to Garcia Ferrara during the Spanish Civil War; Fights on Republican Side until Late ’36, Then turns b/c of a threat to his wife & kids. buys his/their safety by selling out durand. franco lets him live, & everyone else hates him forever.”

After turning his back on them and saving his family, Ferrara stops publishing and ultimately hangs himself. His death also makes his betrayal insignificant and just how people remember him, as S. will see Ostrero as a betrayer.

Eric also notes that Straka most likely was not empathetic towards Ferrara the way Pfeifer was not empathetic. Ch. 4-5 make it seem like vms & durand were really close”. If Ferrara sold out Durand, this lack of empathy would make sense.

Ostrero is also compared to a puppet, which Eric points out has multiple connotations. political (bad), artistic (good). 

In response to the line about being hunted as “humankind’s oldest, simplest, truest story,” Eric connects this to Archer’s Tales.
eternal stories, cycling, reinvented. 

Jen also suggests that Eric should write to one of Desjardins’ students, but Eric decides this is too risky.