Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea

The engineers visited the Scotia, which was put in dry dock. They could scarcely believe it possible; at two yards and a half below water-mark was a regular rent, in the form of an isosceles triangle.

Monster hunt → Nautilus captivity → undersea tour → vengeance reveal; travelogue plot holds from the Scotia puncture through the black-flag confrontation, so plot scores 90.

Captain Nemo's hand contracted, and some tears glistened in his eyes, which I thought incapable of shedding any. For some moments I still watched the dying man, whose life ebbed slowly.

Nemo's tears at dying sailor then cold "I am going to sink it"; Ned Land's temper vs Aronnax lens — moral collision not ensemble warmth, so cast scores 92.

For six months war was waged with various fortune in the leading articles of the Geographical Institution of Brazil, the Royal Academy of Science of Berlin, the British Association, the Smithsonian Institution of Washington.

Episode density high; opening scientific-journal satire accelerates curiosity before cataloguing chapters slow the chase, so pace scores 84.

At seventeen minutes past four in the afternoon, whilst the passengers were assembled at lunch in the great saloon, a slight shock was felt on the hull of the Scotia, on her quarter, a little aft of the port-paddle.

Scientific-journal satire open; electric-light deathbed scene vivid — Aronnax's observational prose makes speculative machinery legible, so prose scores 88.

Half an hour had already passed without our situation being bettered, when the dense darkness suddenly gave way to extreme light. Our prison was suddenly lighted—that is to say, it became filled with a luminous matter, so strong that I could not bear it at first.

Nautilus, undersea geography, electric tech — prototype SF vehicle-world where the submarine cabin's electric light is the first proof of Nemo's civilisation, so world scores 97.

The broken place in the iron plates was so perfectly defined that it could not have been more neatly done by a punch. It was clear, then, that the instrument producing the perforation was not of a common stamp.

Scotia's neat triangular rent after "monster" debate — curiosity spike before the Abraham Lincoln chase, so hook scores 93.

"Sir," replied the commander, "I am nothing to you but Captain Nemo; and you and your companions are nothing to me but the passengers of the Nautilus."

Submarine romance + anti-imperial captain; Nemo's renunciation of nationality and the Nautilus as mobile nation-state — genre-defining, so innov scores 94.

And on the fore part of the platform Captain Nemo unfurled a black flag, similar to the one he had placed at the South Pole. "Sir," I cried, "are you going to attack this vessel?" "Sir, I am going to sink it."

Black-flag confrontation clarifies Nemo's war; resolution leans spectacle over intimacy but the vengeance turn is structurally decisive, so ending scores 88.