Of eyes and i's...

[theo]

He whispered back. “Those inconsistencies
Of character can lead to trouble. Watch,
O Brother Fox, how she holds still so these
Small rings can rise beyond us, towards her touch.

Several thoughts here.  First, it seems clear that there's a hint on page 11 about eyes — particularly red eyes and blue eyes — being important.  But I haven't seen much discussion about "i" (the lower-case character) being part of it. 

There are at least 15 places in the images where the capitalization of a printed word is inconsistent.  The word will be written in all-caps except for the letter "i" which will be in lower-case.  (I haven't found any examples of any other letters doing the same thing.)  These i's seem to be the "inconsistencies of character" that we were warned to watch out for, and their placement seems to be very deliberate.  For example: If you draw lines on page 23 connecting each of eye of the lobsterman down to an eye of the lobster, the lines will pass directly through the i's in "SAiLiNG."  But what are we supposed to do with that?

Another point: Many people on this forum have guessed that the name of the sailboat on page 23 is "AEOLUS," which certainly seems possible, but what would be the point of having the seagull blocking the letters "LU"?  I think it's more likely that the sailboat is named "AEOLiS" with the "i" in lower-case and just barely visible as a reflection on the water.  If so, it means that the two i's in "SAiLiNG" count as red eyes (because they're on a red shirt) and the i in "AEOLiS" counts as a blue eye (because it is surrounded by water). 

One final point: Look at the fish on page 7, particularly the one behind Neptune's sleeve.  It's some kind of colorful flat fish with big round eyes and a protruding snout (probably a butterflyfish or an angelfish or something like that).  The same sort of fish appears on page 11 (the hint page) behind the weathervane.  So it's important.  Now look at page 23 (the lobsterman page) again.  Do you seen any shape that could be the same sort of fish, with a flat, striped body and a round eye and a protruding snout and a tail fin?

That's right, our important fish is hidden on the wall of the shack, looking like a lobster buoy but not having any number and having a distinct blue "eye"!  And if you draw a straight line from the blue eye of our hidden fish over to the hidden blue i in "AEOLiS," it passes right through the dots in both of the red i's in "SAiLiNG" (and through the eye of the seagull).

So what does all this mean?  Heck if I know.  I'm just throwing it out there in case it can be of help to someone.  My guess is that we are supposed to connect the various eyes and i's to form constellations, but it's hard to figure out the order of lines.  I'm missing something here...

[thisjustin]

Theo, thanks for sharing. I have tried to figure out a pattern for the lower case i's as those seemed like the only obvious points through which to draw lines. Every other eye or nose was not specific enough (e.g. where would a line through a nose go? the tip? what about noses facing forwards?). The problem I ran into was that there were simply too many lower case i's spread throughout the book.

Your approach is very creative. I like it!

[theo]

Let's see if we can nail down a precise count of our "inconsistencies of character."

By my count, there are 16 words where "I" is replaced with "i" in a string of upper-case letters.  The words are spread across six images.  I've noted the colors involved, just in case it turns out to be important.

p. 11    “iN” (blue on yellow) “FRi” (grey on yellow)

p. 17   “TiMES” (black on white) “MAiNE” (blue on green)

p. 19   “WiNDSONG” (black on grey) “CADiLLAC” (black on white)
p. 23   “AOLiS” (black on blue/grey) “SAiLiNG” (white on red)
p. 30   “NTAiN” (white on black) “O’BRiEN” (black on orange) “SCRiBNERS” (white on blue)
p. 44   “SOMESViLLE” (black on yellow) “MACHiAS” (black on blue) “POiNT” (white on red) “SiEUR” and “SPRiNG” (black on blue)

Any more that I've missed?

[thisjustin]

P.30 the Triad on the map, and hard to tell but maybe Louis on the Treasure Island book. 

Many on the p. 56 map.