Theory talk:Timeline - Class

The Episode 3-4 Gap
To explain; the first three episodes are a simple affair as is Joyride. The last three episodes and Queen of Rhodia are also simple and quite tied together. But everything between that is a bit more difficult.

Most people seem to try to explain some of the issues with fitting the audios into the Nightvisiting to The Metaphysical Engine, Or What Quill Did gap by placing them post Brave-ish Heart to avoid any conflict - but this is simply unworkable as a wholesale solution. Dorothea explicitly states to Quill that she'll see her on Monday about getting the Arn out of her head. This means the gap between Brave-ish Heart and The Metaphysical Engine, Or What Quill Did is, at best, a period of a week (if BH occurs on a Monday) and, at worst, three days (if occurring on a Friday).

Taking it on at its best, some stories cannot fit that gap (Now You Know... requires an explicit five day gap between its fourth and fifth day of events, Life Experience as it occurs on a Monday and leaves little room for Tanya & Ram to end up in detention, Catfish requires seven days, Everybody Loves Reagan requires five days & then notes that mock exams are on the way...)

There are stories that can fit into this proposed seven days (albeit, rather tightly) - Mock,In Remembrance and Tell Me You Love Me are workable candidates.

I've amended the timeline to bring it more in line with this idea but I'm curious to hear others' thoughts on the matter. JDPManjoume ☎  04:18, August 23, 2020 (UTC)

I actually think that the Episode 5/6 gap is the more useable gap, although it doesn’t appear to be initially and this is why:

For Tonight We Might Die can be dated to taking place from the 12th to 14th October 2016. This is due to a missing persons poster saying that the Coal Hill student who went missing at the beginning of the episode disappeared on Wednesday the 12th. Another poster tells us that the prom took place on Friday 14th, so that’s pretty straight forward for the first episode.

The Coach With The Dragon Tattoo takes place over four consecutive days, and according to a computer date, ends on a Thursday. So that tells us it begins on a Monday. But it also begins a week after For Tonight We Might Die. Therefore it must begin Monday 24th October, just over a week after For Tonight We Might Die and then ends on Friday 28th.

Nightvisiting takes place over one day and into the early hours of the following morning. It starts on a Thursday, so ends on a Friday morning. Therefore the earliest Nightvisiting can possibly take place is a week after the end of The Coach with the Dragon Tattoo, which would 3-4 November.

Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart / Brave-ish Heart takes place roughly a month after For Tonight We Might Die. But as you can see, roughly three weeks have already elapsed from For Tonight We Might Die through to the end of Night Visiting. So that leaves us with a pretty small gap for stories, so it’s perhaps not as workable as you may have expected. In fact they even mention that Armitage was replaced really quickly after his death, and Ram and April only seem to finally resolve their feelings for each other within this story, with them awkwardly circling around each other prior to this.

Yes, Dorothea does say that she’ll meet Quill on Monday to discuss the removal of the Arn, but she also tells her that she still has to do parent-teacher evening which she clearly wouldn’t do if it’s after the removal of her arn. Also, Ram and April have clearly been together long enough that things are getting strained. We can assume that Ames and Quill simply met on the Monday to discuss the removal of the Arn, possibly with Dorothea gathering more information about it from Quill to relay back to the Governors.

Then Detained and Metaphysical Engine take place concurrently, ending on a cliffhanger with Quill fainting. She wakes up from her coma a week later to become involved with the events of The Lost. However it’s mentioned now that a few months have passed since For Tonight We Might Die when if Detained truly had occurred the Monday after Brave-ish only a week and a few days would have passed since that story which explicitly took place a few months after For Tonight We Might Die.

So in conclusion, I believe that the gap prior to the two parter is actually the smaller one, with only a week or two being open for further adventures to be placed, while it’s more likely that at least a month passes between the events of Brave-ish Heart and Detained. SarahJaneFan ☎  19:23, August 23, 2020 (UTC)

Interesting... Your proposition re. Brave-ish Heart sounds good & quite workable to me, based on the phrasing of what is said at the end of the episode - and nothing comes to mind in TMEOWQD as contradictory to that notion. I would be happy to go with a longer gap in there, as I think you've made a reasonable case for it.

The question then becomes the ordering for the audios. Creeper and QoR are simple enough. I would note that we need to keep the following in mind for the rest though for placing all of these post-BH;

Explicit points of note
 * NYK... (5 days, 4 consecutive & then the 5th day occurs explicitly five days after day 4) - after Stone House because of Pentagon line.
 * Catfish (7 days, first 2 days are explicitly consecutive, not quite sure about the others) - after NYK - because Tanya and Matteusz homework lines in both leading a reasonable progression. [I know it frames April and Ram as close to, if not, being a couple... but given Charlie's remarks about Matteusz being recently kicked out, I'd be hesitant to shift this one signficantly late in the timeline. Also, Day 6 makes mention that Ram hasn't seen Tanya for a while, so this must be reasonably distanced from Life Experience, ELR and Mock.]

Reasonable conclusions
 * Soer's Ditch - before TMYLM would best make sense of Charlie's surprise that Matteusz states he loves him & if we're presenting Gifted as a pivotal post-BH relationship point for Ram and April - then this should likely come after that so that Ram and April would be up for a double date night.
 * ELR (5 days) - before Mock, as Tanya makes note of upcoming mocks.
 * Mock - under this new proposition, post-BH and post ELR

Other notable points
 * Sweet Nothings (10 days, not necessarily consecutive - Day 9 explicitly a Thursday]
 * Life Experience [excluding opening, explicitly a Monday]
 * TMLYM [explicitly a Friday]

In Remembrance seems to be placeable anywhere post-Stone House. Though I would wonder, should we split out the 1963-set sections of IR and the six months prior flashbacks of Joyride out - and place them on the timeline pre-FTWMD? JDPManjoume ☎  13:59, August 26, 2020 (UTC)


 * Coming back to note that upon further inspection - Sweet Nothings has an added note of complication - Quill refers to the headmaster very distinctly as a he (about six minutes in). "Look. I don’t know who you are or what you want but I can inform the Headteacher and he can call the police..."

The impact of this is that at least the first five days of Sweet Nothings (which takes us up to about eleven minutes in) must either come within the Episode 1-2 gap [no Ram, April, or Tanya involved, so technically this wouldn't negate Tanya's statements at the start of TCWTDT - as Tanya wouldn't know about The Man, and April wouldn't either... but then that retroactively applies that Charlie didn't want to mention the matter to correct her. Not sure if workable.] or that we maintain Sweet Nothings as post-Nightvisiting and make presumption that there was a male interim head. Either way, leads us quite a complicated path. For now, I've shifted it to between FTWMD and TCWTDT but will happily see it returned to previous placement or otherwise dealt with, based on what other points are raised regarding the matter. JDPManjoume ☎  01:09, August 29, 2020 (UTC)

The Dorothea Ames Gifted debacle
I've looked at the timeline for Class a fair bit since the audios came out, and have been trying to figure out a way best to fit things... I've now added some of my points to this page and reordered as required based on them. But there's one notable sticking point - and Big Finish seemed determined to dodge around it by being very vague - and that's of Dorothea Ames.

I've noted the complexity of the Eps 3-4 gap as is but, however, regardless of how we place stories... there is one notable stumbling point. Gifted makes note of a female headteacher, but doesn't say it is Dorothea. And doesn't make any references to events beyond the first three episodes. I've currently placed it where I have, out of lack of ability to decide.

The story makes no note of the very notable events of Eps 4 & 5. And April and Ram are presented as a not-yet-stable relationship, whereas by the time we reach Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart, their relationship seems a lot more solid. Placing it before would seem like the option, then? Well... Though we never have the headteacher in question featured, it's mentioned that she has confiscated Ram's phone. Thus, it doesn't seem easy to relegate this as pre-Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart at that point, because Ram is noticeably surprised and unaware of her when Dorothea first makes herself known to them. Unless we started speculating without due evidence that it wasn't Dorothea but a different female head - which, of course, we're not going to do here! - then it leaves rather a difficult situation for placing that particular story. JDPManjoume ☎  04:18, August 23, 2020 (UTC)

What She Does Next Will Astound You
Okay, so I know authorial intent sticks the majority of WESDNWAY within that aforementioned gap between Brave-ish Heart and Detained, but I'm struggling to pull out any definite evidence within the story itself to support this. There's also the matter of how to address this story, as various bits of it occur at unknown intervals as the plot builds up. The only definitively placed moment I can find is the three pages set on the day that Mr. Armitage is skinned by the Leaf Dragon. Should we be only finding a place for the majority of the story? And what thoughts do we have on the actual placement of it? JDPManjoume ☎  04:18, August 23, 2020 (UTC)

It pretty much has to go between episodes 3 and 4, because episode 3 is referenced a few times but Ram and April clearly aren’t a couple yet but are getting closer, so it falls at some point between episodes 3 and 4. SarahJaneFan ☎  19:25, August 23, 2020 (UTC)

Though it is certainly post-Nightvisting, if we're now saying that Episode 5-6 is the better gap than 3-4 in terms of length, then I would say that WSDNWAY becomes a bit of a challenge to slot in such a gap. Though we have the simple matter of:
 * During day four of TCWTDT/Thursday 27th Nov - Chapter Eight (pg 34-35 [all page numbers from US print]), Prim interview, Armitage's death [pg 35 implies some significant time has passed since then & that would work out with Days 3 & 4 as outlined below.]

We then have a lot of days to get through;
 * Day 1/the day before pg 8 - Chapter Three (pg 9/10); Tanya's convo with Ram about Skandis
 * Day 2/post-Nightvisiting as Matteusz has moved in, three days before a Wednesday (given it's a school day, I would take this to be inclusive, meaning it's a Monday) - Chapter Three (pg 8, 11-22); day Neil gets burnt. [Based on the current standing notion that Nightvisiting takes place 3rd-4th November, this would be at earliest Monday 7th November]
 * Day 3/Fri, Sat or Sun of that week (Ram's been feeling bad all week) - Chapter Six (pg 25-31) [11th, 12th or 13th - I'd say 11th for now, to keep the tightest timeline]
 * Days 4 & 5/At least another two days' passage with the Seraphin vlogs, and the convos between Quill and Tanya & Charlie and Matteusz - up to Chapter Fifteen [12th and 13th]
 * Day 6/new day, undetermined timeframe later; Ram's phone going missing - Chapter Fifteen (up to pg 73)[School day so this would be then Monday 14th as earliest. Wed 16th, if Day 3 was Sun.]
 * Day 7/next day, Ram's phone convos put online - Chapter Fifteen (pg 74-84) [Tues 15th, if assuming tightest timeline possible.]


 * Day 8/Pg 87 seems to be yet another day. [Wed 16th, if assuming tightest timeline possible]
 * Day 9/At least a day later than pg 87 - Chapter Nineteen [One might argue Thurs 17th... but I'd favour pushing to Monday 21st, under the current presumptions, such that Days 8-10 can occur on the consecutive school days that they need to.]
 * Day 10/Next day - Chapter Twenty-One [Tues 22nd]
 * Day 11/Next day - Chapter Twenty-Three to Twenty-Eight [Wed 23rd] - Rest of the gang enter the white world a few hours later. [And from there, we can say that the days and days spent within are only a matter of hours, as time runs slower in our world than it does in the white world.]
 * Day 12/Next day - Chapter Fifty-Three [Thurs 24th]

Thus, the story would run for at least twelve days of time - and over the period of 7th to 24th November under the current idea that it is immediately after Nightvisiting.

Thus, there are a few concerns for me;
 * Pg 98-101 comes of note to me as a rationale for why WSDNWAY cannot come before Stone House. In Stone House, Charlie and Matteusz make reference about using their phone to send explicit messages and photos to each other. Given that this establishes Charlie overstepping the mark and taking a picture of Matteusz & posting it when he didn't ask, and that the consequence of it is that Matteusz wants Charlie to leave his phone camera out of their private life entirely... I would argue that it would be more natural a placement to put Stone House, with said comments, prior to this point of the book [And, of course, after the events of pgs 34-35, as Stone House is post-Nightvisiting. Argument can be made regarding the timeframe of Stone House in relation to the other points of time outlined inbetween.] Of course, placing Stone House before WSDNWAY would shift us another week back (Stone House is an explicit five consecutive days [Day 2 is explicitly a Tuesday and Day 5 says that it all started earlier in the week]) and make the timeframe for WSDNWAY in this position 14th November to 1st December.


 * Dorothea Ames. It's gonna be the thorn everytime... but if we're keeping to the idea that Dorothea is swiftly replaced after Armitage's death - then WSDNWAY being placed after Nightvisiting in the way that it is would rather suggest that Quill and the gang don't meet her for almost a month after Armitage's death. (Over a month, if we put Stone House first.)


 * Pg 87 notes that Seraphin has been not been seen in public for a month. Coupled with the fact that in Joyride, Tanya is watching Seraphin's videos and has become a fan, should this be interpreted such that this section of WSDNWAY is about a month after Joyride?


 * Day 9/Next day - Chapter Twenty-Three to Twenty-Eight... The discussion of waking up for April might initially seem discontinous with Jackie's legs being restored if we shift this post-BH, but actually, the section featuring Jackie is April reminiscing on how she used to typically wake up - not part of the day itself so there is room for interpretative leeway.


 * Chapter Twenty-Nine also raises an interesting line; the headteacher's secretary muses that "The school got through headteachers at a fairly rapid rate" - given that Armitage was headteacher for some considerable time [The page for Armitage notes at least three years - July 2013], I'm wondering how we should be interpreting that. By keeping WSDNWAY as in the Ep 3-4 gap and interpreting this as a reference in some manner to interim heads, or just as passing comment on the much wider history of Coal Hill?


 * And Pg 218 - When Charlie expresses his dislike for having Quill bound to him as a slave via the Arn; the response is: Suppose there was another way? began Quill. That, I have always read as reference that Quill is now aware that there is some way to get the Arn out of her head. But again, would be interested to hear other opinions on how to interpret it.

Thus, I would propose that WSDNWAY should be moved later in the timeline based on all of this that WSDNWAY should be moved beyond Stone House, if not also into the Episode 5-6 gap instead. If we take that as so, then it would make for a better frame to work the other audio stories around?

JDPManjoume ☎  17:09, August 26, 2020 (UTC)

Joyride and Creeper in relation to Nightvisiting
In discussion above, the following has been noted: ''The Coach With The Dragon Tattoo takes place over four consecutive days, and according to a computer date, ends on a Thursday. So that tells us it begins on a Monday. But it also begins a week after For Tonight We Might Die. Therefore it must begin Monday 24th October, just over a week after For Tonight We Might Die and then ends on Friday 28th.''

''Nightvisiting takes place over one day and into the early hours of the following morning. It starts on a Thursday, so ends on a Friday morning. Therefore the earliest Nightvisiting can possibly take place is a week after the end of The Coach with the Dragon Tattoo, which would 3-4 November.''

However, another potential issue has now come to mind under such a point.

Joyride pg. 45 (US print page numbers - the more correct printing of the two, as it corrects typographical issues and a few other discontinuous points present within the UK printing) has Ram noting the events of FTWMD & TCWTDT as having occurred, and this is following that. Pg 101 also supports this in that Veronica only mentions a fuss at prom and the 'frightful business with the Sports Department'. Joyride takes place over four consecutive days - the fourth of which is noted as a Tuesday (pg 118 - Fletcher remarks that Miss Cummings is on what he knows as her regular 'Tuesday morning ballet class'.).

With what has been said in mind re. Nightvisiting being the 3rd to 4th Nov... we could just manage to fit Joyride in before that as a Saturday 29th to Tuesday 1st occurrence. But I'm curious how we should be consoling The Creeper within that. It seems to be explicitly Halloween night (Monday 31st), and Chapter 8 - on the Monday night in Joyride - illustrates that Tanya and April cannot come out tonight. And if we were to posit it as an early party for Halloween, then Sunday 30th would be out, as Quill, Charlie and Matteusz are home all night.

We could shift The Creeper to Saturday 29th (or even Friday 28th, the day after TCWTDT) as it only details Poppy's death, and maintain the currently suggested dating of Nightvisiting. Or we could keep Creeper as Monday 31st and shift the other stories. Making Joyride Sat Nov 5th to Tuesday Nov 8th. With Nightvisiting being the Thurs 10th and Friday 11th? JDPManjoume ☎  14:06, August 26, 2020 (UTC)