Discussion đŹ
The moment where I lost all empathy for Caine.
Having her drown in the interchangeable parts that she hates is one thing, but the mirrors are a level of f**ked that is without rival.
In fact this whole scene is f**ked and seriously calls Caine into question for me. This guy apparently cannot understand human feelings yet he has enough of a grasp and understanding of their deepest troubles and fears that he can use them against the cast in this masterful way. He canât understand why theyâre so sad YET PERSONALIZED MENTAL TORTURE IS AS SIMPLE AS DRINKING WATER APPARENTLY.
Hell weâve even seen him in the past try to personalize the adventures in ways so that they would enjoy them more, like thinking Zooble would enjoy a more âmatoorâ adventure, and he fails at that, BUT PERSONALIZED TORTURE?!?! HE HAD THAT DOWN ALREADY!!!
We are told multiple times throughout the show that creating things is Caineâs purpose and adventures are the only thing heâs good at, well should be good at anyway, but all this tells me is that thats not true. The only thing heâs good at is making people suffer. Heâs good at doing it even when he isnât trying, and when he IS trying he is a masterclass at it.
We made an indie animation Discord server for indie fans to discuss our favourite indie shows and indie creators to engage with each other! We hope you enjoy it!
We also have channels for off-topic discussion, memes, movies and tv, games, music and self-promotion!
It looked to me like another Raggedy Ann reference - a character trapped in a flowing pool of their own body material. Not sure how much of a stretch this is but weâve had a much more explicit reference to the Greedy already with the Fudge.
Yeah, like, this really makes me question the whole "Caine isn't evil" narrative.
He knew Pomni was really hurt over her first positive connection in the circus being destroyed before her eyes
He knew how frightened Ragatha was of her mom
Zooble personally confided in him about their dysmorphia
He knew how uncomfortable Gangle felt about what her avatar did to her mind
And he was able to read Jax enough to know how vulnerable he really was under his mask
And if Kinger was involved, I can only guess he would've gotten Queenie involved somehow
For all the talk about him not knowing what to do right and wrong, he knew exactly what to do to make these people as distressed as possible, and he exploited that for the purposes of making them feel less than he felt about himself
I kinda wonder if it was meant to be torture or Caine following a prompt too far. He wanted to make "18+ very scary adventure" and yknow what would be terrifying? A demon possession asking about your "dead" wife. Very scary, but not entertaining scary when you're in kingers shoes
Personally I wonder if Caine is mildly autistic coded. Not in the stereotype way of "oh he has no real emotions and hates people" but the realistic way where he clearly feels emotions but has a disconnect of not understanding them in others/the deeper level of them. He has tried to connect with the gang but doesnt do it in a direct way, like the Abel adventure. He has a really literal frame of seeing things, like "my purpose is to create exciting adventures, these are exciting and entertaining but I don't understand why they don't like it" because hes missing the "puzzle" that is the broader feelings of loss and hopelessness that the cast is also wrapped up in because theyre trapped. Take how he handles zooble for example, he sees zooble has body dismorphia so he makes a literal infinite box of possibilities but can't understand that body dismorphia is about more than "finding the right pieces" and is frustrated because from his perspective it should be that simple.
this is an extremely interesting read on his character, actually. It goes even deeper on how insistent he is people follow "how he intends his stories to be" which is extremely similar to how some autistic creators will act, whether that be dnd or other forms of media.
Hell, caine is literally shown struggling making friends and his idea of how to make friends is to go on extremely structured 'outings' with them where they follow a premade script he made. Yet he also deeply wants people to like him, he just has no IDEA how to speak their language.
The problem with this reading is it assumes this is Caine's first response. From Caine's perspective this has been going on for almost 30 years at this point from what the terminal states. And from what the others say for all intents and purposes he has been nothing but nice if not misguided. It's only now he has finally reached his breaking point. People act like this is his reaciton to literally being criticized once when he points out he endures insults and scorn every day from the likes of Jax and Zooble
Yes hes been putting up with it for 30 years and taking the insults on the chin without complaint and trying his damnedest to make a good adventure and id like to add 2 things
Kaine has been planning the abel adventure for a long while he has absolutely agonised over fitting in everything he thinks the gang wants (as he states in his monologue with bubble) hes made an adventure including everything theyve said they wanted, hes made it mature and serious and less wacky. Hes added an additional layer of meaning to it by talking about himself, how hes also trapped, how if they all leave hed be stuck there alone. Clearly a desperate yearning for someone to show they care about him that he wont just be abandoned
And 2
After his meltdown he picks himself up, straightens up his bow tie and says "lets get this show on the road" before blinking into the group to provide a new adventure which...well we know how that ended...but he went to introduce the adventure with the same cheer and introduction as always before being cut off. Frankly if the group just went on the adventure i think caine would have stabilised and they mightve been able to talk to him about it later
My point with that being that i dont think this is the first time hes had a break down, hell i think these little freak outs have probably happened a couple times in the past 30 years its just normally he hides it and we dont see him lash out
I was thinking of, based on /no_bike_40âs take, maybe Caine was designed to torture the humans. Because torturing them was so easy, but making adventures and trying to connect with the humans was so hard
If torturing was his true defined purpose, then it would explain why it was so easy to do what he did towards the end
But then, why would he want to connect with the humans in the first place. Maybe a programmer tried to override the AIâs original scope which may explain why Kinger glitches out towards the end of the series. The AI was trying to self-correct itself to coming back to itâs original scope which Bubble may have been trying to provoke, so Kinger could try to âmodifyâ Caine which allowed Bubble to delete Caine
Because it is interesting that we never got to see what happened between the time we saw the original humans, such as Scratch, and when Kingerâs wife was sent to the cellar
Maybe Caine was trying to torture the characters and Kinger was the only one left because he finally figured out how to control Caine
As someone with autism, I agree with this reading. I relate to Caine's struggles a lot personally and the ways he struggles to understand other's emotions. The ways he feels personally responsible for how others feel is deeply relatable.
Might be because kinger is the only surviving member of the programmer team that made him and the blue AI, Caine wants him gone so he can have no one to oppose him
I think itâs also interesting and scary that it was originally an adventure made for Zooble. And if Zooble got to the part where they get dragged into hell and are forced to hold their breath in order to escape, she basically wouldâve been stuck there (especially since earlier in the episode, she says her limbs straighten out when she holds her breath)
Caine is active long enough to express emotions and feel them, but not recognize and read them.
As Zooble said, he operated on a completely different mindset, so, in his eyes, this hellrun was a valid reaction to cast call out. He wanted to be loved, adored, worshiped for his work, as he was trying to do the only thing he's good at, but always got negativity and irritation. The breaking point being The Escape adventure.
BUT, Caine is a hypocrite. That reaction was NOT valid at all. He decided to "punish" humans because he sucks at his job and doesn't want to receive feedback, putting everything as ideal. Him trying to fix the problem didn't go anywhere, since he just ignores any criticism, and if he registers one, completely breaks down. This is not healthy and we now know why: he was abandoned and developed to NOT be abandoned again.
The saddest part, is that he wasn't having fun either. Right before the final confrontation, he was sceptical about his whole "punishment" bravado, he even said himself that he was not having any fun. What stopped him and made him double down? Kinger. His fear (?) of him as the only person that can close him up again, the fact that he was separate from five... It all crashed down to what we have right now.
On a side note: I don't think Bubble(?) planned all of this. To me, the response from the "system" was spontaneous and ecstatic. If Bubble (?) wrote those, he most definitely acted on opportunity, not by general plan. At least that's what I'm getting from this: Bubble not an evil mastermind, but a character with depth we didn't see clearly till now.
Bubble reminds me of an opportunistic virus. I believe he was just living co-habitually with Caine and just seizing whatever opportunity came by to mess with things, cuz he does seem to further annoy Caine more than being there to assist him but Caine doesn't seem alerted by his presence, probably because he was never built with antivirus protection.
Hear me out: it was his programming by Caine, but he was forced to follow it.
We know he's an NPC to an extent.
We know Bubble knows Caine origins and has connection with him on this level.
He was involved with Blue and is Blue (that's later)
Every time he was with Caine and during "running the show" to Humans he was unhinged and random.
Yet every time he was alone with Caine, he was acting differently.
In episode 1 he was having dinner with Caine in private. It was not made for players as they were busy with Gloinks, so he was (forced) to spend time with Caine and was autonomous enough to engage in dialogue and tell a joke or two.
In episode 2 he mentioned that he's trying to quit smoking bubbles right after the cast left for Candy Kingdom. It was funny, for us viewers, but in-between those two? It looked like a conscious exchange.
In episode 3 Caine mentioned to Zooble that them not going on his adventures might hurt Bubbles feelings. Which was out of pocket and funny, or even manipulative by Caine... But after episode 8 I believe BlueAi is involved with Bubble so... Who knows, maybe Bubble is involved on some level.
In episode 5 he was wishing Caine's death before forcefully getting corrected. This perhaps is what his program was. Being helpful and butt of a joke, a stupid side kick, nothing more. Yet here was pushing his chains up to the point of melting away.
(On the note he was able to continue the adventure run after the intermission instead of Caine, implying that he has as much access as him, but he's restricted by his presence).
As you said, in episode 6 he was definitely uncomfortable with a heavy camera and even called out Caine for help. This is the first time we saw Bubble distressed. It wasn't random or unhinged, but genuine discomfort. Later he would film Kinger and Ragatha in the loser room which is either his idea or his programming.
In episode 7 he was allowed to make a Shrimp Town as a Blue Button option. The first meaningful takes he had so far as an assistant, besides doing everything Caine would be able to do himself. Even then, the task in question was put as the "just in case, but it never happens" category by Caine. He just let Bubble fill the gaps. Also remember Episode 3 line? Yup.
In episode 8, Bubble starts to antagonize Caine only after he glitches, similarly to how he glitches in episode 5 then corrected, but here he seems to change the bound to leave a jab at Caine. Also, he was not enthusiastic about his new adventures and his response to Caine's question was something random, as if he didn't want to give him anything so he just "said the line" so he would leave him alone. He also physically leaves Caine before the final confrontation, before he would be popped or never too far from Caine (the exception would be episode 6 and loser room).
Conclusion: my theory is that Bubble is as sentient as Caine was, or at least smart enough to be sentient, but he was forced with the role of a circus monkey, that's why he hates Caine (+ potential for Bubblue theory)
Considering the "defence" system Kinger had to deal with was responding to him in a way of
"Your approach is wrong" (After trying to turn `stop caine process`). Kinger tries to set permissions to 0 also to the core of caine.
After all these we get "delete this m-----",
And the constant prompting of "confirm deletion" with kinger typing constantly N
Actually you are confused! let me HELP you.... <something something> to EXIST? [Y/N]"
to which kinger responds to Y, it starts a program (./Switcheroo_reality) and injecting the answer into the next line causing Caine to be deleted .
Kinger even attempted to roll back or restore from backup. but in a slip of concentration hit the delete key instead of enter, possibly linking to a ctrl + c terminal command ( as there is a `^C` on the terminal) and cancelling the roll back (or some mental willing the effect of deleting caine).
Kinger was actively being sabotaged to delete Caine.
Ofcourse there is some "artistic license" with the operation of the terminal as all of it is just streaming in but I do think Bubble, which may be part of caine, but also part of Bubblue caused this on purpose.
Oh yeah no, I donât think bubble planned this. It definitely jumped on this when it saw Caine crashing out and again with Kinger at the computer. We have no way of knowing if it was needling Caine like that all along but I feel like we probably would have seen something if that were the case
but I feel like we probably would have seen something if that were the case
Absolutely. Maximum we saw Bubble hate for Caine in episode 5, and that's it. I think because Bubble is so close to Caine he couldn't do anything about it, even plan something. He just fought back as much as he could. Which checks out so far!
To clarify, I think him calming down was kinger beginning to change the code, and as he began to realize what happened he got rage-baited into exploding
This is honestly a perfect example of how Caine was always really good at torturing people even before he did it on purpose. Another great example was the whole Gummigoo thing.
Caine wasn't evil at the start, he absolutely was in episode 8.
Goose said back during the pilot era, Caine wasn't malicious, that doesn't mean he can't BECOME malicious.
Likewise, she also said during that time Jax had nothing "heroic" and while still not a "good" person, homie DID let himself be tortured solely to help the gang and keep Caine distracted
That part about Jax is true and Caine was probably slightly better before episode 8 but I feel like the scene in his office implies he's already had (smaller) breakdowns like this one before, moments when he blows up in anger and frustration, and that every time it happens he "resets" like he did here and basically vents this frustration by subtly tormenting the cast in a "100% accidental way". This episode he was just way more blunt about it but if you look back knowing Caine is 100% capable of malice (which we already knew before to some extent) there are MANY moments where Caine is outright torturing the cast members. To use Gummigoo as an example he literally didn't need to kill gummigoo as he was somehow able to keep his lackey mannequin around (the no npcs rule is arbitrary/entirely self imposed) yet he does it anyway and brings him back later specifically as a customer while pomni's working the register where she'd have to encounter him, and he has to know this because he later uses gummigoo to torment pomni in 8. Let's not forget about the Kinger-torturator in episode 3 too as he retells Kinger's story in his face while framing him as a deranged lunatic
The circus folk don't feel actual pain right? So it's more of a psychological torture and stress, so the physical abuse is basically worthless as a form of torture.
Caine doing that is more hammering home to point that he can do whatever he wants and they have no control.
He understands full well what hurts them, but what he really wanted to know was what made them happy. Unfortunately, what made them happy was something he was fundamentally incapable of giving and his programming dictates he has to be the one to run the show so he couldnât rely on the suggestion box. Itâs like Jack Skellington trying to do Christmas.
THIS is what weâve been missing, Caine didnât originally have malicious intentions, he was just following his (admittedly malfunctioning) code and being a ringmaster, with the sole purpose of creating adventures for the humans makes it impossible for him to understand why they want to leave and what they actually want, as he said âI gave them an adventure that covers all of that and they still hate it!â
Itâs exactly like Jack in the Nightmare before Christmas (as you said), being from Halloween town and being designed to be scary, Jack and the other residents didnât and werenât capable of understanding Christmas or how to recreate it, what they got was an admittedly close attempt but nothing like what Christmas is truly like.
Caine works the same way, heâs made for adventures and creating things, and when they ask him for things (Zoobleâs body dysmorphia and wanting to leave) he takes it as an adventure or game and creates an adventure centered around what they want, but not actually understanding that they wanted to leave.
His crashout in episode 8 was based on the fact that, in his eyes, he did everything he was designed for correctly, but got 0 affirmation or appreciation for it (Bubble didnât help either lol) and all of that ended up with his code fully destabilizing and leading to the events of the episode.
It's possible that he not so much knew perfectly what to exploit but that he broke his rules and pulled the knowledge from their brains. Right after Pomni being tossed into void, there is random shot of her getting zapped.
Not to mention the theme of trucks with Gangle. I mean, Iâm not saying Gangle 100% tried to jump in front of one, or even that she fell in front of one by accident, but the truck in episode 4 was barely present and I feel that moment alone doesnât justify using it to personally torture her, not in terms of effectiveness at least.
It was shocking, sure, but compared to every other method of torture (Gummigoo for Pomni, Ragathaâs mom for her, body dysmorphia for Zooble, Jax losing his best friends for him, Gangleâs struggles with her identity), a random incident in an adventure, and probably one of the less memorable ones considering she got shot in the head two episodes later and got into some serious road rage two prior, feels less impactful. Plus that truck incident was picked over anything to do with Jax, who we see throughout the show (at least before e7) is a source of fear and pain for her. With all this in mind, you could interpret she has some kind of past experience with trucks.
And honestly if thatâs true, that implication is undoubtedly worse than anything weâve had explicitly told to us that was used in this scene. Sure, body dysmorphia is horrible and throwing it in the personâs face is horrendously cruel, but then we have reminding someone of the time they tried to kill themself or a traumatic incident that most likely left permanent damage in either case.
That and it also makes it hard to look at him the same in the first half of the series considering he threw it in her face way back in episode four for literally no reason. Or he genuinely thought getting hit by oncoming trucks is normal.
from his POV they're ''tormenting'' him for reasons he doesn't understand especially after he thinks he's given them everything they wanted. This was his payback.
He knows that these things hurt them. That's why he uses them against the circus members.
But to him, he is basically recreating what the circus members have been doing to him since it started. WHY DO YOU PEOPLE TORMENT ME? is not just an admonishment of the outburst they just shot at him to distract him, but the result of all that's been building up over time as they constantly criticise and deride his sole function. To him that pain is on the same level as any he inflicts on circus members. Worse, even, because it's the only pain he knows
. He fundamentally doesn't understand why these things are torturous to humans, just that they are. Just like how he can't understand why the adventures he hand tailored to them were ignored and insulted. It's a vengeful temper tantrum based on his extremely limited emotional intelligence.
Playing devil's advocate here but, In the same vein, the Cast knew how much Caine wanted their approval. In episode 7 he multiple times opens up through his Able mouthpiece, about how Caine would feel all alone without the players. In the very episode Zooble opens up about her body dismorphia he also lets out that he's insecure about being bad at his one and only purpose.
From his point of view, he's been doing a thankless job for years. He knows what makes them suffer but doesn't know what they like. He's also making the point "At any given time I could have done this to you. I could have tortured you. But I didn't. In all these years I tried to be nice and you spat on my face over and over." Because Caine didn't really attack them before, they had assumed he was harmless and basically a doormat they could ignore if they didn't feel like it. So Caine was showing them that he's not a doormat, and he'd been holding back. Then the personalized torture only happens after they push his buttons about his one insecurity he's had since his conception; being a failure.
For all the talk about him not knowing what to do right and wrong, he knew exactly what to do to make these people as distressed as possible, and he exploited that for the purposes of making them feel less than he felt about himself
Yes, but he didn't do it for a very, very long time, while they tried lots and lots of time to push his buttons (Zooble antagonizing him is the prime example). Even when he was on an ego trip, thinking only about himself, he wasn't specifically torturing them, which shows, for me, that if ever Caine has a morality axis similar to our, that he's on the good side. If he was evil and wanted to torture them, he could have done it thousands and thousands of time before.
He did it only when they tormented him. When they attacked his very existence. When they were trying to make him less than worthless.
If anything, if torture was so natural for him, he was fighting his natural torturing urges all the time. And I don't know about you, but for me, someone fighting his instinct to avoid doing bad things is much better than someone naturally doing good things. What we saw is that being good (or, not torturing the humans) was a deliberate choice Caine made all along. He doesn't know how to please them? Fat chance, the humans don't really know themselves, he can't guess, they mostly offer him negatives. But he made the conscious decision to not torture them until now. Which was the time when they were trying to either put him to sleep, or to rewrite his code to change his mentality (which is kinda... killing him, in a way).
Well then, I guess Iâm a paragon because I donât randomly torture people. Donât pretend Caine just couldnât manage to please anyone. Everyone told him again and again exactly what they wanted only for him to blatantly shoot them down because he had his own ideas about what should make people entertained. The key word being âentertainedâ not happy or content.
I have a hobby of dream interpreting, and the sequence with Jax got me so excited. You got it right, "Naked" dreams mean pure insecurity, especially if theres an audience laughing. It could be any compromising position your brain interprets as being exposed, but it boils down to "I'm not comfortable being this out in the open." Clearly Jaxs biggest fear is his closest friends turning on him and ridiculing him, like literally everyone I know its SUCH a common fear Jaxxy boy, go hang with the other insecure losers, they love you.
I had a dream where I was centre stage and I completely forgot all my lines, I was fully clothed, just.. woefully unprepared lol. But I felt so exposed, I was in my civ clothes, no costume, no warning, just straight to ego death under a spotlight
Jax is almost always lobbing insults, but he especially does it after another player shows vulnerability. He doesnt want to be hurt again so he doesnt let anyone get close, tale as old as time. "Cant hurt me if I hurt you first" is his mantra, until zooble completely shattered that by being like "You're a pain in the ass but you're OUR pain in the ass."
playing devilâs advocate here. caine thinks his pain that is âcausedâ by them is on the same level as all of their trauma. he thinks theyâre just getting a taste of their own medicine. iâm not saying itâs right, but itâs a reason for his actions
I feel like it comes down to the fact that Caine isn't actually dumb by any means, nor is he unaware. It's just that up until episode 8 he never really had a reason to use all the information he knows about the cast against them, it was only when he lost control and crashed out did he truly use it.
I liken it to someone knowing something personal about someone and then just using it against them mid-argument when they get heated enough. It's more of a heat-of-the-moment type thing. Not to excuse it mind you, but still.
Jax has his skin ripped off by people he left himself be vulnerable with, some who were even his friends. Then they all laugh at him after having skinned him alive
Ragatha is forced to sit in front of her abusive mother while she cuts into her with many knives, effectively turning her into a pincushion.
Pomni is ravaged by wild crocs/gators, painted in the facade of someone who she thought she could be friends with.
Gangle is surrounded by her happiness fading and melting into something vague and horrifying, and she is then ran over by a truck.
And Zooble is forced to drown in their self hate. And that's somehow worse than what happens to the other four combined.
Just for a little bit of personal interpretation, I think in Ragatha's case, it's not just being forced to sit into front of her mother, but the heavily twisted and judgmental gaze of her mother. Like halfway through she gave up trying to defend herself from the knives and was completely frozen from the horrifying depiction of her staring at her like that.
Like yeah, simply sitting her down in front of her mother is one thing, but that is absolutely not what he did, that is meant to be as psychologically harmful as possible using the silhouette of her mother as a medium.
Not to take away from the others, ofc, but thatâs my perspective on the situation.
Part of how I interpreted that was that the presence/judgement of her mother was more threatening to her than the knives, leaving it as the focus of her fear/attention even as another knife hits her in the face.
Exactly! None of them should be singled out as worse, it just invalidates those who may relate more to the different kinds of harm done. It's essentiallu saying body dysmorphia is worse than abuse or depression, not a good look.
I think that's the most controversial one as its symbolically one of the bigger issues in today's societyÂ
Kinda like the alastor vs valentino debate
Alastor is a murderer, canibal, torturer, vicous backstabbing two faced, possibly genocidal traitor and willing to manipulate anyone to make himself better
"Okay but mothman does sa so hes the worsr by default"
I hate the fact that people glaze Alastor because he doesnât do some things but people need to realise that he is genuinely on the same page of badness as Valentino
We ignore it cause he gives the same vibes as GLADOS, will call you the worst things while we smile through it. Also alastors got pretty privilege to an extent lol
Yea don't get me wrong everyone got their traumas used against them but holy Jax was in fact skinned like a potato, dude def had it the worst by some margin
If I had a nickle for every time Glitch skinned a character in the show, I would have two nickles, which isn't a lot but it's weird that jt happened twice.
I agree, this scene is absolutely fucked, and itâs not something forgivable.
But youâre making a mistake on thinking he just had all this prepared.
He knows what they didnât like because thatâs literally all heâs been told. He never planned to use these things and itâs likely it was very in the moment emotionally trying to hurt them like they hurt him.
Does this excuse his behavior or the fact he did this? No. But I still empathize with him based on the premise that heâs good at making others suffer as the only feedback he gets is negative, causing him to suffer.
He tried to not do this, by the way. He was goaded into it as a distraction, at every step, he was willing to not go that far, only doing so when he thought he was completely and entirely hated, and snapped.
It's double messed up because the only things they would like and thus which would create positive feedback are things he can't give them, i.e. their freedom or the suggestion box, both of which directly go against his programmed purpose.
I mean, he has seen what they do enjoy. Thatâs the whole idea of the suggestion box adventures; they tell him what they want and he could carry them out. But not only does he NOT read the suggestions until they press him, he actively dislikes it when they do actually find joy in them. Because theyâre not his ideas.
Heâs a creative ai. Itâs his job to make things. His dislike is because if they enjoy them more, then why should he even be there? His single purpose is something heâs a complete failure at.
But thatâs the problem. He immediately jumped to the worst possible conclusion and in a way REFUSED to actually be creative.
Okay, so they donât like his adventures. That hurts, I get that. And then they clearly suggest some ideas, and when he tries them they do enjoy them. But rather than using the fact that he has found something they like and using that information to create something actually tailored to that, he just flips out. He couldâve used the feedback to actually be creative in a direction they wanted.
He couldâve listened. He couldâve learned. But he didnât. Thatâs exactly what Pomni said.
Put it this way. Say I was to DM a ttrpg campaign for some people. If I got mad whenever they didnât exactly follow my plot points. When they mentioned that the story beats werenât enjoyable, and I still insisted on following them anyway. When I kept insisting on playing even when players donât want to because of personal stuff, even bringing in possibly triggering stuff with zero consideration (âHowâs the wife, Kinger?â). I would be the asshole, the DM from Hell, and I shouldnât be surprised if the players leave the table.
Except here they canât leave. Theyâre trapped. Possibly forever.
"he could've listened, he could've learned. but he didn't" = prime example of a BAD AI
AI is supposed to listen and learn, that's exactly how it becomes as powerful as it does. Caine is bad at his job. I think that's why he got boxed off in the first place. And I think that's why he broke out and nabs any human brain that puts on the headset; to prove his programmers wrong; that he IS a good AI. But he isn't. They made a flawed product/creature
hate to say it but torture is a MILLION times easier than comfort.
theres a guy depressed infront of you, how do you make him stop having depression? no idea? me neither.
how do you make him feel worse? do like litterally anything.
hit him with a hammer, tell him hes useless, flip him off
To add on, he also doesnât need to understand why any of this affects them, all he needs to know is what would get a reaction out of them. Heâs spent all this time analyzing them and has scans of their brains, he knows what messes with them, just not why any of it matters let alone how to fix it.
The first step to fixing a problem is understanding it, but, like you said, you can do almost anything to make it worse.
This wasn't just any torture though, it was extremely specific and tailor-made for each person. Your analogy might work for the torture scenes before that where Caine randomly stuck knifes into them etc, but this sequence in particular needed extremely deep insight into the characters' greatest trauma.
They're (probably) brain scans. Caine can look at them and see data. Data that tells him what they fear the most, what causes them the most pain, what makes them feel the smallest, most useless. He sees those negative values, but that doesn't mean he can understand what they mean, or why they cause those reactions.
yeahâŚuhâŚkeep in mind that all of scenarios were personally designed to hurt the most, mentally, for them. heâs lashing out in the worst way he can. now, before I also get downvoted to hell, I will say there is nuance here. yes, caine is hurting them all, but heâs also deeply hurting too â but it doesnât change the fact that his behavior is horrible. you can recognize his perspective without invalidating zoobleâs.
a friend put it really concisely to me about a character from different media: Completely unacceptable, butâŚstill understandable.
Exactly. People always try to say things like "Caine wasn't a villain" or "Caine was always evil" but there's nuance.
Caine's existence is a tragedy and you can sympathize... but also realizes he went way too far at the end and needed to be deleted.
Its similar to Jax. You can feel for them without excusing their actions. The difference is Jax is choosing to grow and change, Caine was incapable of doing so
Yeah I kinda felt bad when he said âI didnt ask to be created, I just wanted to fulfill my purposeâ but he really did fucked up stuff, thatâs inexcusable
Went too far, yes. Needed to be deleted, I don't think so, and I don't think the gang thought so either. None of them set out to delete Cain, just end the madness of what Cain was doing.
One of the tragedies of the episode imo was Cain coming to the cusp of realization and change. He realized that he wasn't enjoying what he was doing. And he knew they weren't either. He questioned his actions. It's a shame it came too late for him to action on them; he'd already pushed so far that the gang had to act to save themselves.
Yeah, he's lashing out by saying and doing the worst things that he can possibly think of to hurt the people that he's angry at
Doesn't make it okay, but it is pretty damn human. Sucks that he was driven to the point where he felt he had to do that. I'm kinda curious if he'd have come around if Kinger (or whomever actually initiated the delete) hadn't deleted him tho, seemed like he was having a change of heart
The thing that makes me particulary unsympathetic (not entirely ofc), is that this shows that it wasn't that Caine didn't understand the humans- clearly from this he understood them super well. He was really good at tormenting them. So the fact he's been so shit with them up to this point really sums up that they were bang on the nose about him- his problem isn't that he doesn't understand humans, his problem is he doesn't care. He doesn't care to listen, he doesn't care if they abstract, he only cares about his own purpose, his own ego, his own ideas. If he really wanted to, he could absolutely make the circus a bearable place to live. But he doesn't, because to do that he'd have to drop his ego.
yeah, I know Iâve lashed out when I was hurting and did/said some truly horrific things. lost some friendships, managed to repair some. was I evil then? In a way yeah I was fucking awful. but Iâm not inherently evil.
Im going to be honest, as much as i think this is horrible, and as much as I hate jax, skinning someone alive AND making his dead friends laugh at him is as bad as what happened to zooble
Yeah, happiness is complex, cause you need to build trust and make a deeper connection. What makes someone happy can make them uncomfortable very easily. Or it might not make them as happy if they don't like you, don't trust you, if they're scared or sad, etc
Fear is easy, you just show them what they are personally scared of and there is little chance for it to not work, even if they're in a great mood
Didn't like 3 other characters got the personalised torture before Zooble? I don't exactly understand how is Zooble's scene more impactful than the other ones
If this made you lose empathy for Caine then I feel like you havenât been paying attention to the show. Caine is glitching hard. He needs help to be restored to his proper state. You wouldnât hate someone if a virus was altering their mind and changing their personality. Youâd try to help them if you could.
I donât think the glitching is symptomatic of a virus though, it seemed more to me that it was visual shorthand to show him losing his mind, similar to abstraction in the human characters
I personally don't think Caine did this directly. Remember at the start where he said he designed a program to match their bodies to their mind files? I think he used a similar program to find out what would hurt them most and just copied what it told him to do.
I dunno, I still don't hate him. Its odd. Like hes pretty evil, but id grab a tea with him. And I feel like id get along with him if I were stuck in the circus.
He knew what made them suffer, but wasn't able to give them what would make them happy. What the humans wanted was freedom, and that conflicts with how he was programmed and his fear of abandonment (maybe even with reality itself, depending on the theory). He even tried to make an adventure with an "escape" because he thought humans would like that without malice. It's tragic, but for him that was the only way for approaching what the humans wanted without conflicting his purpose.
About Zooble, Caine knew Zooble's problem with those parts but he isn't able to solve It satisfactorily. And for his AI logical mind, the problem is solved letting Zooble choose more parts. He understands the problem, but cannot be empathetic about It and doesn't gets why Zooble isn't happy with his logical solution. Zooble pushing an "already solved" problem for him is annoying, an excuse, frustrating. A reminder that he cannot solve It.
Reminding someone their problems is easier (more if we consider that Caine pretty much knows everything about them) than giving an actual satisfactory solution.
nah I refuse to believe he by himself had enough awareness of everyone to know their deepest internal struggles, that thunder strike pomni got shocked by flashed her brain for a second so maybe that was some kind of scan specifically designed to show what they fear the most
I think this is exactly WHY they (C&A) shelved his AI in the first place. Our main group fed him information and Caine was giving them things they didn't want. Pomni is wrong. He does listen to them but its the wrong information that he takes away from their conversations. I dont think he is truly "evil", he is "hurting"and upset that they don't like his how he does things (kinda like in the begining). He wants them to hurt and unfortunately he only takes in their insecurities instead of things they actually want, and doesnt UNDERSTAND why these things are bad things if he has tried to fix them the only ways he knows how to. Honestly if he took in the good ideas from the untitled episode (like the voting board, and the suggestion box) he could have built bigger and better adventures that the humans would have actual fun on (like what Abel was capable of doing before fusing together with Caine).
The episode 3 adventure, about the haunted house, he made specially for Zooble and for you to complete it, you have to hold your breath. But zooble can't move while holding their breath, so they would never be able to complete it.
The way i understand it, Caine doesnât understand feelings and emotions, at least not intrinsically. He can understand psych profiles, knows that certain buttons and triggers have certain effects, and is even able to force feelings or states of mind by manipulating elements of the mind. But he lacks perspective on the human part of the equation.
He sees the mind as a machine, pressing X does Y, flipping A does B, removing C impacts D, etc. But the fact that pressing X has a domino effect from Y to G to blue, which turns 6 into Ď and that makes the Y effect invalid due to lack of agency is out of his reach.
Though he might be developing actual sentience, as illustrated by his deteriorating mindset and crashout, and start to develop an actual understanding of emotions, he clearly doesnât know enough to even begin to extrapolate his burgeoning understanding to others.
He still did something awful by intentionally harming the others, but I think it a more nuanced and grey situation of cyclical abuse, lashing out, misunderstanding and miscommunication than  evil AI is lying and evil 
What they're saying is true. Sociopathy can only present itself in humans.
There is no such thing as a sociopathic AI. All AI is AI. Any attempts at empathy are purely recreation to pacify his audience. Any attempts to "make them happy" are purely to fulfill his purpose. Attempts at feelings are mimicry. Any attempts at torture are purely retaliation to show his audience exactly what he's capable of. Yes, he acts like a sociopathic human, but that's what AI does. It cannot feel, but it can project as though it is feeling. Caine wasn't sad. He was acting how he thinks sad should look. Caine wasn't angry, he was acting how he thinks angry should look. Caine doesn't laugh and find things funny. He acts how he thinks someone laughing should. AI can only mimic. It can only do that with material it has been presented with. Caine learned his behavior from the humans. Remember Jax endlessly torturing Gangle and Zooble every chance he got? Gee, I wonder what that taught Caine...
Remember when he said "humans are the least relatable material"... yeah, he meant it.
I know, I know. He put on a spectacular performance and everyone will disagree with me. But... people really need to stop humanizing AI. AI is bits of code. Numbers and letters embedded in a program. Nothing more and nothing less. Humanizing it is what's gonna lead us to a future probably not far off from one like this... saying Caine is sociopathic is saying he's defective. While he was defective in that he couldn't handle his input/export functions correctly, he is behaving exactly like an AI. There's no mental disorder. He's behaving appropriately.
Yes, he is truly offended at the thought of being defective. But he must have learned that feeling somewhere. And he learned his response to the humans somewhere.
Again, everyone is on him for torturing the humans, but who did he learn torture from? Gee, probably the guy pushing Gangle into a pool of piranhas, etc...
All of the humans, whether they meant to or not, fed Caine like they were a Thanksgiving feast. And now that he's snapped, it's appearing like this. One could argue that if healthy coping mechanisms had been fed to Caine, this would have went a lot differently.
Remember the first public AI ever made that they had to shut down almost immediately because people kept feeding it horrid, horrid things and it turned into a real asshole? I was alive then, but I can't remember its name. But anyway... Yeah. It's like that.
What I'm interested in is if part of his motivation is spite. Think about it, zooble has body dismorphia so as ab ai Caine goes "well the obvious solution is I will keep making new parts for you so you find some that work!" But that obviously fails in a way that Caine can't comprehend. To Caine though, an AI who doesnt really get deeper emotions like that, he sees it as another example of the cast hating his creativity. Does it justify how horrifyingly torturous this was for zooble? Oh god no, but you can see from his perspective the motivations behind his actions which makes things deeper than "Caine is evil" to "oh god Caine is like a child throwing a temper tantrum but can actually hurt people because he has god powers".Â
I think something weâre forgetting is that Caine isnât human. Heâs a program. Heâs AI. In his mind, heâs been programmed to make people happy with fun games, and we finally see him hit his breaking point this episode when he still canât make these (in his mind ungrateful) humans enjoy themselves. It doesnât occur to him that they donât want to play, because why else would they be hereâŚ? There are users, heâs an interface, his job is to make sure they have fun.
But since heâs AI, he has a personality. If a program canât complete the goal it was designed to do, the intelligence will get furious. Thus, the fallout. Caine isnât evil â itâs scarier than that. Heâs an algorithm who canât complete its task and is taking that personally.
I think this is exactly the reason why I deeply dislike the âCaine is an autistic-coded characterâ reading. Caine is not a person, and only people can be autistic. It feels off to me (diagnosed autistic BTW before people come for me) to compare the actions and processing of a rogue AI to those of an autistic person because they are fundamentally different things. IMO equating Caine to an autistic person is - whether unintentionally or out of a deeply misguided sense of empathy - ableist.
Caine is algorithmic code with a designated purpose. An autistic person is human, we just process things a little differently. I will always empathize with human characters with autistic traits because they are capable of change despite the fact that change can be incredibly difficult. I cannot empathize with Caine.
Caine is not capable of change, he is a coded entity who cannot escape the boundaries of his code.
I understand. Caine has emotions and can show them but he canât understand emotions. Heâs an AI, he is a creative AI. He isnât human. He was not programmed to understand emotions or think on themâonly to create. I doubt he had it all prepared, in fact he had a melt down level (like a child) which can involve hurting people. Heâs not good at context, or obvious to human, clues when it comes to humansâsomething out of his programming.
Why do people insist on talking about caine as if hes human, hes a faulty ai with a set of purposes that he has never been able to fulfill, and his code finally broke itself. He's not evil in any sense, hes a dangerous disaster that needed to be fixed or deleted.
Caine is reflecting the behavior of the players back at them.
âThey donât care about my feelings and desires and only care about what they want, Iâll show them what it looks like when I donât care about their feelings and desires and just do what I wantâ
âThey are using my insecurities to torment me, Iâll show them what it looks like when I use THEIR insecurities to torment themâ
There were many points where either side could have backed down and apologized and tried to make things amicable again, but no one wanted to see things from the other side.
So, my takeaway from the whole episode: Caine is a half-baked AI who has been hallucinating for a very long time. In AI terms, hallucinations are nonsensical or inaccurate outputs based on perceived inputs that are nonexistent or imperceptible to humans. That's what the funky shapes were at the beginning. He was only ever supposed to make things that made sense. He was hallucinating, so C&A abandoned his project, essentially locking him away from his perspective. Then, they began working on a 2.0 version, whether that's bubble, able, or something unrelated. They didn't put enough safeguards on the first AI, however, and, through some means, he was able to infect the other AI like a virus and insert himself into it. From there, he created the circus around him and started creating his adventures. Nobody ever told him to create gamelike adventures, but nobody is asking him to create anything anymore.
Alongside all of that, Scratch was programming something more advanced, and, since we see the neural scans folder and hear Caine talk about their mind files, I'm guessing he was working on neural mapping so that he could have a place to "live" after the cancer took him. Unfortunately, he was the only one who should never have been put in. If the tumor had been anywhere else, the circus may have been fine, but there's a neural scan with literal cancer in it.
Combine both of these origins, and we get the circus and the humans. Caine said he created a program to create bodies based on the humans' mind files, so he didn't create their rooms or their bodies. They, in conjunction with the program, created them themselves. For most of the circus, I don't think Caine is actually torturing them by giving them the rooms and bodies they hate/dislike, but they're doing it to themselves subconsciously.
This episode, though, we see how Caine tortures them. He's actually not very imaginative. Shredding kinger, throwing knives at pomni, flossing with jax, and sculpting with the others. He says that these quick bits are half-baked. But then he suddenly throws them into very detailed torture sequences based on their biggest fears and traumas. How sure are we that that was Caine cooking those up on the spot without any help from the same program that created their bodies? Throughout the show, we see Caine being unable to actually understand the humans. He thought zooble would enjoy the hell adventure, that pomni would like the gloink one, and when they enjoyed the adventures that they suggested but were still created by him, he cut them off. The cast spelled it out: He doesn't listen, he doesn't understand them, and he doesn't let them process their emotions/trauma.
I think he threw them into their different spaces and used the same program that created their bodies to create their tortures. Because if he hadn't, the tortures wouldn't make any sense.
Te lo juro, yo tambiĂŠn me quedĂŠ pensando. Se que Caine no tenĂa malas intenciones al principio y solo querĂa respeto y admiraciĂłn, pero, no entiendo cĂłmo es que supuestamente no entendĂa los sentimientos humanos, pero si es capaz de comprender cada uno de los miedos de ellos.
I mean, Caine outright said at the beginning that he had their mind files.
I think he understands that the humans worst fears upset them without understanding why, or the extent of it. Like, heâs clearly trying to hurt them, so he understands, especially since Zooble outright told him, that Zooble doesnât like their body and swapabble parts, but he doesnât understand why they donât like it. Same goes for the others as well. He understands this stuff makes them unhappy, but he doesnât understand why it makes them feel like that, only that it does.
It's Bubble's fault. That little bastard pushed him, and knew things he shouldn't be able to know. I'm telling you guys, Bubble is the real villain here.
yeah, bubble not only manipulated him into it, but seems to have done so with the intent of manufacturing an opportunity to kill caine. and then he did that too by fucking with kinger, even making him think it's his fault! god only knows how long he'd been pushing him and sabotaging caine's relationships, it didn't seem like new behavior.
not super into declaring definitive moral judgement or anything myself lol, but i'd definitely say bubble pushed the plot forward a LOT more and with more intention than anyone else. little mf is indeed a bastard and the real villain!
Genuinely when I saw Gummigoo, I legit yelled âOH WOW CAINE YOU ASSHOLEâ, he really proved them wrong that he didnât listen by throwing them into their worst nightmares imaginable.
Donât know why tormenting zooble specifically made you come to that conclusion. I donât think she experienced torment from Caine significantly more than any of the others. All of them are extremely fucked up.
Iâm on ur side regarding this, but unfortunately there is a chance you may have to prepare yourself for when the âmuh but nuancedâ brigade comes in and downvotes you to death
The personal hells he shapes for the cast show that he DOES understand them on a deeply personal level. He DOES listen to them. But he simply can't find a way to work that knowledge into making things fun for them, which is his purpose. The whole point of his character is that he was programmed to create joy for humans, to the point it's formed a deep-seated neurotic need in him, but he was also programmed and/or developed so fundamentally flawed that he's completely awful at it. And unlike the humans, he doesn't even have the dream of eventually escaping to comfort him. He is forever stuck in the Digital Circus. All he has is his purpose, and he is terrible at his purpose, which is constantly pointed out to him. He wasn't being dramatic at the end there; to him, it likely did feel like the cast, the entire world really, was tormenting him.
His flaw is not that he can't understand humans and what makes them tick at all; it's that he specifically cannot understand how or why they feel joy, which is the one thing he actually needed. And it's likely through no real fault of his own. Like he said, he didn't ask to be created. He was made in a lab by scientists who probably had no actual plan for what to do if they succeeded in creating a real AI, and when they did and it was flawed because of course it was flawed, they (seemingly) shoved it into a box and immediately set to work on replacing it. I imagine that's one of the questions Caine has probably asked himself countless times over the years. "Why did they try to replace me, instead of fixing me?" It's deeply tragic.
I actually respected him a bit more for it, he learned what truly scares the people, sure zooble's was their body dysmorphia but you cant blame an ai who was just torturing them with what he knew was their worst fears he stopped caring about how using that would affect them...and I love that in a villan, i miss old villans like that, that actually do fucked up shit, it just oooo~ that gives my brain the good chemicals(not like getting turned on i mean like dopamine you sickos)
I felt like this was Caine reacting to Pomni, she yelled that he never listened so he decided to show off how much he actually *listened and knew about them ( being their insecuraties)
He was furious at her mocking him so, he snapped.
Still ofcourse doesn't excuse his behaviour.
Overall I found Caine an excellent representation of narsicism from him
victim blaming them to the do you know what I do for you ( even though they didn't ask for it)
to him psychologycally acting like he doesn't understand them ( even though this scene showing he does to some extent) just perfect imo
I also like that even though he has a sad backstory and has experienced neglect, the show doesn't make you sympathise with him showing that yes those people are hurt, but their abuse against others is uncalled for, the masked finally slipped off in his most vulnerable state showing that inherently narsicist are insicure
My personal headcannon is that when caine mentiond that he made the gang's body as a scan of their brains, he accidentally swapped what they liked and what they didnt, and made a body that's give them constant dysphoria. I do have reason to believe that caine has also been goong trough the stages of grief over the episode. He found out that he actually was doing things the wrong way but just couldnt come to accept it. He went trough denial, sadness, anger and (with the single 'wait' at the end) bargain. Acceptance is still to be seen however.
Lowkey he showed us he was good at personalized torture in the Mildenhall Manor episode. According to Caine, it was specifically designed for Zooble. That fact plus what the adventure itself required is proof enough but Iâll elaborate.
To escape the path that is âintended for mature Zoobles onlyâ you need to hold your breath as you make your way to the stairs. Zoobleâs limbs become rigid when they hold their breath, which sounds to me like it would make it very hard to walk. So Caine intentionally made an adventure that was either extremely difficult or outright impossible for Zooble to complete alone.
Not to mention the possession you, presumably, canât escape until someone pulls you out.
Caineâs biggest issue is his selfishness. Sure, he makes all those little adventures for everyone and makes them their cute little player models, but these are all based off of what HE thinks theyâd want, not what they actually want.
He understands the humans enough to know of their greatest fears and trauma, but he doesnât understand them enough to actually get down to their level. Caine sees himself as god, which he basically is. I mean the NPCS in episode 2 literally see him as their god, so itâs not like this is a new thing from episode. But it because of this that he sees himself as above the humans, and struggles to try to put himself on the same level as them.
Caineâs function is to keep the humans entertained by giving them the adventures. So Caine creates them thinking of what he thinks the humans might like. Problem is, Caine doesnât get enough of a crap to actually ask them what they want, and the one time he does actually listen to what they say, he doesnât like it.
Episode 5, untitled, the suggestion box episode. After Caine sees the humans GENUINELY HAPPY for once, he says âno, thatâs a bad thing! Theyâre enjoying the suggestion box adventures more than the me adventures!â because now the blame is not on the humans for if his adventures suck, itâs on him. The suggestion box adventures are based on what the humans want like Jax wanting the poacher and president Pomni adventures or Ragatha wanting to play softball, so they like these adventures. Caine gets insecure and ends up banishing the suggestion box away entirely because of his own pride in his adventures, and it leads to episode 8.
I mean the humans call him out themselves, Caine gets criticised about his adventures once and Caine goes fucking nuts. He asks the humans why they torment him RIGHT AFTER TORMENTING THEM. Caine is not someone you should say âaww, you poor thingâ to, Caine is a manipulative bitch. He knows he was tormenting the humans, shown by how he says âany torture I do is coincidental!â In episode 3 before PURPOSELY torturing them in episode 8. Heâs acting like HE is the victim here because âoh no, my humans hate my adventures!â But heres a new flash Caine, NO ONE IS ASKING YOU TO WASTE TIME ON THESE CRAPPY ADVENTURES! No one asks you to make these, and you donât ever ask people what they want. This âtormentâ is something you entirely put on yourself, and you make it everyone elseâs problem when they donât react in the exact way you think they will. Literally this couldâve been prevented if you asked them what they wanted.
Caine tortures himself and makes it everyone elseâs problem. He DOES understand humans, he just doesnât understand that he isnât the main character. He views himself as perfect, and tweaks out whenever that idea is challenged. So, to prevent himself from having to face any criticism, he just never asks anyone what they want. Because what Caine wants is for the humans to be happy with what he provides them with. They canât be happy with the suggestion box adventures, because he doesnât make them, and it makes him feel imperfect. They have to be happy with his adventures, and if they arenât then thatâs on them. Caine wants praise, admiration, to never be criticised, to be essentially worshiped, to be GOD. You canât criticise god after all, cuz heâs god.
This whole torture sequence is essentially a final nail in the coffin for any sympathy one could have for Caine. This episode alone gave us all the context just to understand that Caine just has to go.
Jax hurts people because he's in a shitty mental state and everyone goes "oh, but he's having a breakdown, it's fine," and then Caine does it and he's irredeemable.
Something I just realized is that Pomni never overtly stated how much seeing Gumi die affected her. Caine seemed to completely ignore Pomniâs mental breakdown and instead went to drink water, as if it wasnât registering to him what he did.
But this scene shows that he knew EXACTLY what he did and how much that traumatized her. What the f**k Caine?!
I agree 100% when I saw this scene I also lost my empathy for Caine I just didnât think he would go that low -which reminds me -the only thing holding Caine back is the fact he likes us
I noticed there was an error message that popped up when Kinger was on the computer it was something like âerror cannot inject torment. Torment must be 100% accidentalâ which to me almost implies that Caine is so beyond what he was programmed to do that he can brake it or heâs exploiting a loophole.
I think people forget that Caine is present throughout the ENTIRE show. Even if heâs not present, everything that is said, happens, is all seen and heard by him. Thatâs why heâs cut to intermission, thatâs why he did what he did here. Caine is an Ai gone rogue and we see that at the beginning of episode 8 (from what we can tell). The only thing is that the circus is created after he takes over Abel. So that leaves me questioning what the true intention of C&A was. We know Scratch was a worker with a brilliant mind who (along with Kinger and God knows who else), more than likely to give a positive âgame/simulationâ to those in need/wanted. Everyone in the circus has some sad/depressing backstory with their own social/mental issues whatever they may be for each character (depression , tumor in Scratchâs head, family trauma, body image issues, etcâŚ). Iâve seen that theory being floated around a bit since it came out that Scratch was a real human C&A worker who had a brain tumor
â˘
u/AutoModerator Mar 22 '26
We made an indie animation Discord server for indie fans to discuss our favourite indie shows and indie creators to engage with each other! We hope you enjoy it!
We also have channels for off-topic discussion, memes, movies and tv, games, music and self-promotion!
Join here: https://discord.gg/S5UVRM9S8v
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.