How do Archer, Jones and a photoplay manual disagree about conflict, and what concrete test and obstacle-strengthening steps can an agent apply to a scene?

Archer rejects will-against-will as a universal differentia (his counter-cases: Othello, As You Like It, Ghosts, the Screen Scene) but keeps a weaker practical rule, 'No obstacle, no drama', and shows plays weakened by an inadequate obstacle. Jones, defending Brunetiere, widens the law to 'up against' any antagonistic person, circumstance or fortune, and reports 'strengthening the obstacle' as his own working method. A 1913-1919 photoplay manual treats the obstacle as the hero's problem in the 'complication'. The three sources agree on the obstacle-strengthening step and disagree on whether conflict is essential. Curator qualifications: 7 of 7 excerpts present (E1 differs only by Gutenberg italics '_As You Like It_'; E6 by a page number '36' and line hyphen 'for- tune' in the OCR). Archer: 'it is clearly an error to make conflict indispensable to drama, and especially to insist--as do some of Brunetière's followers--that the conflict must be between will and will'; 'No obstacle, no drama.' Though far from being universally valid, this form of the theory has a certain practical usefulness'. Jones: 'Drama arises when any person or persons in a play are consciously or unconsciously "up against" some antagonistic person, or circumstance, or fortune.' Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.

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