There's also the fact that he's been stated to be inspired in AM since the Pilot, which people immediately believed that that meant Caine WAS AM. That he was just evil. And 8 only reaffirmed that, it confirmed what people wanted to see about the character. Content farms and analysis videos also pointed to that, also tried to sell the narrative. I won't provide examples for the sake of not pointing to individuals. But many people haven't progressed past that. Many online discussions are "Caine is a villain because he was a villain in 8". I've seen A LOT of those.
I guess accusing Caine of replacing Jax is also a very succulent reason to be angry about the narrative. It's easy to simplify stuff by accusing a singular character of all the bad stuff that happens in the story. This has also happened with Jax, in which people are still accusing him of having caused all the problems in the circus, and I saw a bit of Ribbit under this after 9 too. Truth is, it's much more nuanced and complex. It's not about who was worse. They all had their separate issues and reacted to them in different ways, knowingly or unknowingly causing consequences for the people around them, and advancing the narrative.
The ads, which are non-canon and most of which haven't been written by Goose, also aggravated the issue. People see them either as canon or canon characterisation, and there's been some MAJOR mischaracterisation related to Caine in them, especially after Episode 8, which tainted the message of the character.
How many times have you seen people making art, redesigning or making AUs about "the main cast" and leaving out Caine? How many times have you seen people mentioning "the main 6" and not "the main 7"? How many times has Caine been painted as the abuser in fanworks, and removing him from the picture magically healed all of the human cast's issues?
Because I've been investigating the phenomenon for years, and boy is it a lot. As with the content farms, I also have tons of examples which I won't provide due to pointing to specific individuals or online communities. A TON of them.
But the conclusion is, that most people outside the Caine circles never truly accepted Caine as a main character on itself, only as an antagonist or villain, and this, sadly, didn't change after 9. They never got the message of the character, be it because of the AI bullsheet, be it because they think he's annoying because he's neurodivergent-coded, be it because the ads and promo materials managed his character terribly.
And the marketing team will give people what people want, what people believe, in order to make money, accidentally tainting stuff in the process over time, turning a brilliant message into a flanderisation.
It saddens me. It saddens me a ton.
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