In Chap­ter Thir­ty-Sev­en of “The Choco­late War,” Goober arrives at a chaot­ic scene at the school’s sta­di­um, filled with class­mates trans­formed into strangers. He had hes­i­tat­ed to attend, wrestling with feel­ings of guilt and an inter­nal strug­gle over wit­ness­ing Jer­ry’s impend­ing humil­i­a­tion in a fight that pit­ted him against Jan­za. Despite lay­ing sick in bed for days—either from phys­i­cal ill­ness or a guilty conscience—he reluc­tant­ly made his way to the spec­ta­cle against the protests of his par­ents.

As the fight begins, the atmos­phere is elec­tric, with Carter explain­ing the unset­tling rules. The crowd’s antic­i­pa­tion is pal­pa­ble, urg­ing the fight­ers on. Jer­ry finds him­self caught between the expec­ta­tions of his peers and his own reluc­tance to hurt Janza—even after the bul­ly­ing he endured. When Jer­ry final­ly strikes, his punch mere­ly grazes Jan­za, prompt­ing boos from the crowd.

Crowd fren­zy esca­lates as Jan­za, enraged, lands a sav­age blow on Jer­ry, caus­ing him to reel back­ward. Despite the throb­bing pain, Jer­ry waits for his chance to retal­i­ate. When it arrives, he unex­pect­ed­ly lands a strong hit on Jan­za, sur­pris­ing him­self with the adren­a­line rush. The tables momen­tar­i­ly seem to turn, as he tem­porar­i­ly gains con­fi­dence and feels empow­ered by strik­ing back.

Carter’s next com­mand leads to chaos when he instructs Jan­za to deliv­er an ille­gal blow—a low punch intend­ed to inca­pac­i­tate Jer­ry. The crowd, unaware of the rule vio­la­tion, con­tin­ues urg­ing Jan­za on, result­ing in over­whelm­ing vio­lence as he rains down fists on a help­less Jer­ry. The Goober, hor­ri­fied, ago­nizes over the scene and rec­og­nizes that the crowd craves blood­shed.

The cli­max unfolds as Jer­ry, now severe­ly injured, col­laps­es under the relent­less assault. In a sur­re­al moment, the lights sud­den­ly go out just as he hits the ground, plung­ing the sta­di­um into dark­ness. In that instant, the bleak real­i­ty of their sit­u­a­tion sinks in, sym­bol­ized by the chaos and bru­tal­i­ty wit­nessed. As Obie expe­ri­ences dis­gust and a sense of fore­bod­ing, he glimpses Broth­er Leon above the scene, sug­gest­ing a dark orches­tra­tion behind the vio­lence. Mean­while, Archie nav­i­gates through the result­ing pan­de­mo­ni­um, deal­ing with the after­math of the pow­er out­age and the chaos it incit­ed .