Hey, this is a submit post because I listened to all of Blackgaard saga basically while I was at work this past week, and I wrote up all my thoughts about the current book AND it is rambling and only goes until like, just shy of Waylaid. And thoughts I had before I even got to DBD: LITERALLY STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS FYI:
So Richard knew Greg Kelly, who lead him to Blackgaard, but wait, I thought Jellyfish did? Or did he just know Jellyfish and they both ended up in CCDC, and then Jellyfish learned about Blackgaard? Jellyfish seems to know so little about Richard.
Webster Development Company is owned by Dr. Blackgaard, so he wanted the land in the first place - due to the Webster Company wanting the Filmore Recreation Center from the very beginning - Ep Recollections
But he failed to get it, so he tried to get into town FIVE YEARS LATER!!!! Why five years?!!!
The Filmore Center was built in the Depression, but the land is where the mineral is, and the old church burned down, right?
Connie must have been at camp longer than a week. Obviously kids stayed a week, but I assume her position as camp counselor was longer than a week? Obviously in all that time things had to go down with Richard and Eugene.
Eugene did a random check after he got used to the computer system. So it wasn’t immediately (though he was probably really quick, he’s EUGENE for goodness sakes). Obviously Richard wanted the job, but couldn’t have it because of Eugene. Maybe Richard knew Nicholas before Eugene was hired, but obviously Richard was manipulating Nicholas from the get-go. By listening to the show, Richard had to know Nicholas before Eugene was hired, so that part is a bit confusing.
Because Nicholas was changing the grades, and Richard didn’t need actual access to the room to change the grades. He’s a good manipulator.
So listening to ED, Richard was manipulating Nicholas three months prior to Eugene being hired, about a month before Eugene and Connie were fired, and then Eugene got the position a bit later. Time is a little skewed… Because the grades being changed were before Eugene came, the dates made Whit realize Eugene was keeping a secret.
So at the end of that ep, Richard says he has a better job lined up. My understanding from the novel so far is that Blackgaard’s job wasn’t paying much (“power”???), and that’s why he started to change the grades. So I think Eugene got hired too fast in the novel, lol.
In Nemesis, Richard said the building had been recently built - so it was empty and Blackgaard needed a business license to open it up. The book says otherwise via Glossman, because the area was dead… maybe it was rebuilt or a shell?
Maybe it all makes sense with Richard & Nicholas at the college while the building is built, but Eugene working at the college at that time doesn’t fit.
Blackgaard wants Connie’s answer soon, because Blackgaard’s Castle opens up in a few weeks (before the vote for the business license)
Noted that Richard is okay with manipulating everyone, but not okay with hurting anyone or burning down the barn.
But Richard goes along with Blackgaard because after they connect, Blackgaard does start dangling threats in front of Richard, which does worry Richard. Which is why he can go from pissed to calm in an instant. Which is definitely how he acts around Blackgaard in DBD.
And then by the time the Battle Starts, the Castle has been opened for a couple of weeks. SERIOUSLY THOUGH. WHY DID HE WAIT FIVE YEARS?!!!!
Also, how dumb is Blackgaard? Did he really think Richard got the password from Lucy?!!! DOES HE THINK WHIT IS THAT DUMB?! And Richard still taunted him?! WHAT THE HELL. THESE TWO CONFUSE ME AS BAD GUYS.
Was the Israelites when Whit was teaching High School for 13 years? Or just Sunday School?
(I apologize if I swear. I have a tendency to do that unconsciously)
Yeah, before the books I assumed when Richard said Greg led him to Blackgaard that meant he was the one who first introduced the two of them, but now I’m thinking what he meant by that was that, once they were released from the detention center, Greg found Blackgaard knowing that Richard wanted to keep an eye on him, and then told Richard about him then. (I have this whole fic idea in my head where Greg and Richard became friends in the detention center and Richard warns Greg about getting involved with Blackgaard but he does it anyway in order to help Richard out. And then of course he gets in over his head and gets killed and that does not sit well with Richard, like at all.) And yeah, it’s weird that according to the books Richard and Jellyfish knew each other before getting involved with Blackgaard, especially because, as you said, Jellyfish really doesn’t seem to know much about Richard. (I mean, he was like “oh yeah, I guess you did mention you’re from Odyssey, I guess I forgot”, which... makes no sense if they knew each other from way back when.) Idk, it doesn’t clash TOO much with previously established canon, and if the reason Jellyfish went to jail in the first place was because Richard told the police about him it’d explain why he hates him so much (which was never really explored in the radio show), but... yeah, it still doesn’t feel quite right.
As far as the waiting five years, on the Adventures in Odyssey Oddcast (which I recommend checking out if you can, by the way, it’s really fun) they theorized the reason Blackgaard took the five years to come back to Odyssey was because he spent that time getting his doctorate in child psychology, and that theory makes a lot of sense to me.
Again, citing the Oddcast, it seems like it was renovated in the Depression but was around beforehand? The history of the building of Whit’s End has always been a bit hard for me to grasp.
Huh... yeah, I can’t recall how long Connie’d be at the camp. We know it’s two weeks from Eugene’s Dilemma to The Nemesis and that Eugene’s Dilemma ended while Connie was at camp, but I’m not sure how much time that took place during. (Like... the timeline is Bite of Applesauce, then less than a month until Eugene’s Dilemma, then two weeks until the Nemesis, then anywhere between a few weeks to a month or so until The Battle, right?)
Yeah, I always assumed Richard had known Nicholas for a while (I’d also been estimating a couple of months, and obviously reaching back to the first time the grades were changed) and had been using him to change grades before the computer job was even announced. So the timeline in the books is... nonsensical. If Richard has only known Nicholas for a few days it’s just... it makes no sense.
Considering the info from the show and the books, I think what he was trying to do was clear out all the businesses from the area, demolish them and then build Blackgaard’s Castle on the land. I think so, anyway? But yeah, the timeline would be okay if they didn’t try to cram Richard’s college mishaps into basically the same week as Eugene’s Dilemma.
I know, even as a kid I got the feeling Richard was like “this was not what I signed up for” but since Blackgaard was basically blackmailing he decided it was better to go along with it than risk getting in trouble. (Which, y’know, is kinda analogous to what happened with him and Nicholas...)
And yeah, Blackgaard’s kinda... he gets a lot smarter in future episodes, doesn’t he? ^^” To be honest, I never really got why Blackgaard thought “ah, a child, obviously she will have valuable information about the secret computer program I want to steal!” Like... seriously dude?
Huh, I didn’t even think about the Israelites in conjunction with Whit’s years as a teacher. I know it sounded like the kids involved were either in grade school or middle school, and given Billy’s age in DBD I always placed it happening shortly before the show started. (By the way, Billy/Connie is probably the least sensible Connie ship I have, but it’s also my favorite, so *shrug*)
