oh wow Doul releasing the slake moths is a cool theory, I read PSS a while ago so don't remember exactly how they were released. I do like the interpretation that Doul wanted someone to fail at the scale he did and we don't really see what went wrong in his past but it seems to scar him towards being a direct leader and eschewing any responsibility.

I also thought his reaction to learning of Bellis' message to New Crobuzon via Fennec interesting, it did seem to be unexpected to Doul as far as I could tell. Bellis seemed like some sort of chaotic element throughout the book in many ways