i think it’s so interesting that karl denies his humanity at every chance he gets but still has so many human traits about him. he hates being called a pirate because of their connection with humans, but he literally gave himself the name karl. which is arguably one of the more human sounding names compared to a few of the other residents in the park.
he also still plays violin despite its connection to rachel. i’m still wondering why keeps playing it because of that, but i feel like it sort of points to the implication of karl missing rachel? that’s mostly just speculation, though. the fact he plays it for fun(?) is still a really humanizing trait imo. and his interest in classical music and composers in general. although tbf unknown did specify he had an interest in human culture despite hating humans, so music might fall under that category.
i just find it ironic that while most of the residents of the park that we’ve seen do seem pretty human, karl has some of the more explicitly human traits. climber and TG both have their own respective interests and insecurities that make them feel more like actual people. this is my excuse to bring up TG enjoying the idea of cooking and liking the aesthetic of ice cream 🥹 BUT the thing with karl is that we get to actually see him engage with and genuinely enjoy the violin and musical compositions during LoT. i won’t count TG for this since we barely saw him in action unfortunately, but in climber’s case his interests tend to be much more childlike and more in line with his ignorance of how the world works. biggest example of this is cyan being his favorite color because of clarice’s shirt. from what we HAVE seen from karl, it seems more like he does everything he does for his own enjoyment. i don’t doubt that he misses rachel and that violin could totally be his way of coping(?), but it also seems like he does it for himself from the tidbits given in LoT.
it doesn’t help that he’s much more human looking compared to the other statues and decorations that we’ve seen. even with his scarring he still kind of just looks like a Regular Guy; if one looked at him from far away you’d probably think he was just a Regular Guy. i know he got rid of his pirate themed accessories to avoid the association with humans, but honestly i’d argue that he looks more human without his accessories.
ACTUALLY one of the reasons i’ve been thinking about this is karl’s dnd card. it talks about karl loathing his own humanity and i just find it so incredibly interesting
i can understand him hating humans, but the hatred for himself is so peculiar to me. karl is, without a doubt, a cartoonishly evil guy who gets every little bit of enjoyment he can from harassing and killing whoever he needs to whenever it’s convenient for him. that being said, though…how does it play into him hating his own self? because i feel like there’s a few different directions it could go in. of course he doesn’t want to be perceived as human, that part is obvious, but his denial could be his way of considering himself better than humans that kill each other. because at the end of the day he still ISN’T human, so why should he fall under his own critique when he’s supposedly making the world better by exterminating such awful creatures?
i feel bad for bringing her up again but i really, really wonder how his history with rachel plays into his mindset. we know so little about what really happened between the two of them that it lowkey hurts my head to think about 🥹 but from what little we do know it’s very clear that most of his bitterness originated from whatever happened between them and the gunman; i won’t say all of it came from that though because it’s clear that the inherent dislike for his situation WAS there before everything went down, but definitely boiled over after the incident and turned him into the karl we know now. i just wonder if his hate comes from her, the gunman, or a mix of both. does he not want to be like rachel who, in his mind, lied to him about their relationship and betrayed him? i don’t think that would make a lot of sense since his personality now almost feels like a parody of her character from when he was around her.
actually, wait, this might be a stretch, but while writing this i’m thinking that his tendency to lie could come from that too. he’s mimicked a few of her behaviors with the violin playing and his use of the phrase “Deary me!” all the time. if we’re following the narrative that rachel lied to him about what i’m assuming was their relationship and/or feelings for each other, then this could possibly be his way of maaaaaybe mocking her further? even if it was a misunderstanding (which i personally think it was), karl still believes that SHE was the one who hurt him—or at the very least led to him being hurt. we don’t know what led to the gunman being there, so i don’t want to 100% pin the blame on rachel because i really don’t think it was her fault 🥹 but then again i might be overthinking this since his constant lying could just be his way to avoid being honest about himself and whatever goes on in that ceramic skull of his.
anyways, side tangent over, back to my original point. it’s also possible that karl doesn’t want to be like the gunman because whatever that guy did whenever everything went down DID hurt rachel one or another. we see her crying in one of the frames during karl’s flashback in round 5 when we see him get shot, so we can see that she absolutely did not like what happened. does he not want to be like the guy who hurt her? that would contradict the theory of karl killing rachel since…that involves karl…hurting her…really badly. hm.
i did see a theory that caught my eye and has been on my mind for some time now. someone said that it could have been the gunman who killed rachel, and that karl was angry because he couldn’t save her. this is one of the more interesting takes i’ve seen because it line up with what’s said on the dnd card. kind of??? the only reason i haven’t adopted this theory is the way karl talks about rachel in LoT, as well as the flashback that shows up when he was fighting annie. but i do think about it a lot! it’s a really unique take on what happened imo :]
it would make more sense for his hate to come from a mix of the two. as i’ve been saying, karl himself is a very human individual, so his thought could be that hey! if this guy is willing to try killing me, he’s probably willing to kill one of his own! that’s DISGUSTING. or maybe karl had gotten to a point where his relationship with rachel led him to believe that even if he isn’t human, he is still able to love and feel just like one. his rejection from her could have made him realize that he’ll never be able to be anything like a human. and maybe that’s why he hates his own humanity—it reminds him of what he ISN’T, so he uses hate as a way to cope and avoid his problems. that lines up with what we’ve been given because this is essentially what rellik says during his fight with karl.
i’m going to go over one last little tidbit that i briefly discussed earlier. i think another reason karl seems more human is that he seems more…mature??? question mark??? i say that with a grain of salt because while i think he’s an adult i also consider his behavior to be similar to an obnoxious teenager LOL. but compared to climber and TG who have a much more childlike innocence and love for the world, he definitely sees the reality of his situation and is understandably upset about it. climber is very ignorant knows very little about the world outside the park, so it kiiiiiind of makes it harder to see him as explicitly human. if that makes sense? TG also has this problem for example, as his hyper behavior makes it harder to see for him to understand humans and stuff. now, that is NOT to say that this denies them of their autonomy or their humanity; i personally find climber to be very human and i relate to him a lotttt because of that. but my point is that karl has a much more…concrete personality because of his understanding of the world and human behavior. which adds to the irony of his situation because if it weren’t for his inherent interest in humans then he wouldn’t BE like one.
it would also explain why he got so ticked off by climber’s presence. we don’t know very much about their relationship in CoN but we do know that it’s not. very good. since climber said he hates pirates in that scrapped endzone comic and also asked jackie why they had to help him since karl hates them. climber and karl have a lot of similarities, so i don’t doubt that karl is meant to be climber’s foil. it would explain why karl doesn’t like him since climber proooobably reminds him of what he was like when he used to be simple minded and easily trusting of people.
tl;dr why did he name himself karl and act like a human if he hates them so much 😂😂😂🤣🤣
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