120 The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 108

[Aquillion]

I take his initial appearance through the glasses to be one of surprise. Wouldn’t you be surprised?

If I was a stark-raving-mad caster? No.

But more than that, compare how he looks in that panel to, well, how he looks any other time we've seen him. With one exception (which I'll get to in a moment), every time we see him his face is deformed into a grotesque parody of insanity. That's not just 'surprise', that's seeing him without his mask. (If it is surprise, it amounts to the same thing -- if his reaction to surprise is to 'looking normal', it's logical to assume that his insane expression is an act. A genuine madman would look more insane when taken by surprise, not less.)

And that one other place (aside from the flashback) where we see him without an insane expression? Here -- at night, under very dim light, when Stanley is specifically shown as not looking at him (and could hardly have seen him anyway, the way he's staring right at the fire.) In other words, the one place where we've seen Jack in a situation where he could have safely dropped his facade of insanity, he did.

Oh, and one final point (which is really much more telling than the rest, but I only just noticed it): Even in that page, there's still something insane about him (something he couldn't change as fast as his expression). His hair, of course, has been worn in a wild, 'madman' shape since Stanley unlinked him. It's to be expected, of course, if he's faking it -- combing his hair would make him look less insane, and he wants Stanley to think he's bat**** crazy.

Now go back and look at today's page. Compare how he looks via Thinkamancy (which, remember, connects directly to his mind -- it's not Lookamancy or Foolamancy, it doesn't pay attention to actual images) to how he looks in the next panel, or with how he looked in the other page I linked above. Notice anything different besides his face?

Yeah. I could maybe buy surprise accounting for the change to his eyes, but I can't really see it slicking down his hair (and then immediately unslicking it.) Via Thinkamancy, he looks like an neat, organized, sane person -- which is what he really is.