I have a back lot of TADC art that I feel ready to post. I also have notes and theories about ep. 8 that no one seems to have noticed yet so I’m going to give my two cents here.
Spoilers for TADC Ep. 8
1/7 Caine’s empathy
People have been arguing that Caine either refuses to show empathy or simply doesn’t have empathy for the humans, but I don’t think that’s true. There is a part( don’t remember from which episode) where Caine fixed Gangle’s broken mask completely unprompted. And when Jax nearly abstracted in ep.7, Caine has his fake human Abel make Jax the center of that adventure when he clearly didn’t need to. Caine talking about his own hobbies and trying to emphasize how he and the humans aren’t so different could be Caine’s weird way of trying to comfort Jax. Perhaps he has empathy but doesn’t know how to actually show it in a way that is actually comforting.
2/7 The Torture Session
No one seem to be talking about how Caine didn’t actually make those specific tortures. Recall that Pomni was zapped in the brain before she was attacked by evil Gummigoo. So the torture was actually created by her own brain. As was the torture sessions of all the other humans. I doubt Jax ever talked enough about his insecurities enough that Caine would have known to create shadow Pomni, Ribbit, and Kauffmo to strip Jax’s skin right off his body. Same with Ragatha’s mom. I doubt they ever talked enough about the things that bothered them that Caine would have been able to create perfect tortures for each of them. That zap symbolized Caine making them feel the way he was feeling.
After Caine’s villain song, he looks down on the characters and sees how much he messed them up and how unhappy they are. He fixes them without being asked. And even states that he’s not having any fun with hurting them, or as he calls it “ rapid fire ideas”. Even in his most chaotic state, Caine doesnt enjoy hurting the humans, unlike AM from IHNMAIMS.
3/7 Caine’s Lack of Sanity
He isnt sane. Not once in the whole series has Caine been mentally okay. Even his plush shows his insanity by giving him two different pupil sizes ( a sign of brain damage). Some argue that Caine deserved to be deleted because he had every chance to learn from his mistakes but instead took a violent turn.
Lashing out is a primary sign of mental illness and the humans didn’t think to actually try to help Caine( Kinger reprogramming him) til he lashed out. But instead of receiving help, he was accidentally deleted.
4/7 Caine is not Naturally Violent
This is supposedly the first major crash out in the history of the circus. It’s clear that Caine had been on the brink of losing it for years, but did not restore to bullying the humans until ep.8. That’s 20+ years of holding in frustration and anger. Even Jax says that it’s not in his nature to be malicious.
5/7 Caine’s Ego Keeping Him From Being a Better Host Not True
Caine does have a huge ego but what he prides himself on is being a great storyteller and artist. When ever he is one on one with the humans he is often asking for ideas. This does contradict his disposition on the suggestion box adventures, not liking that they enjoy their own adventures more than his carefully crafted adventures. But what gets me is a certain scene in ep. 8.
Ragatha is preparing to tell Caine some fake praise but Caine didn’t sit though hearing even one compliment before he got bored and wanted to play with the humans again. He seems to prioritize his art more than his image in the eyes of the humans.
Perhaps he is less of an egotist with a god complex and more of an artist with a god complex.
As someone who has known both narcissists and autistic people. Caine displays more autistic traits in my opinion.
6/7 Caine Needs to be Held Responsible for His Actions, But Are They Truly His Actions?
Before Caine losses it in his office crash out, he says that this problem with the humans being unhappy is just a puzzle he needs to solve. But then Bubble gets in his head and starts spewing doubts at him causing Caine to lose it. Instead of solving the problem like a puzzle, he decides the humans are the problem. He seems to short circuit, fall unconscious, and reset like nothing ever happened. Almost as if something else possessed Caine in that moment forward. Jax says that it’s not in Caine’s nature to be malicious. And Zooble says that Caine doesn’t do bad things to them because he likes them. Caine himself says he thinks humans are beautiful in ep. 7.
Caine to suddenly be malicious and not like them is canonically out of character for Caine.
Was it the other AI that Caine absorbed taking over Caine’s mind? Was it Bubble?
The question is: Is it truly Caine’s fault that everything was ruined, or is someone/something else to blame?
7/7 Eating Information
Is Caine represented by a mouth because he wants to scream or because he wants to eat? Caine in his early development was literally fed a small amount of information before being locked away. This information being in picture form. And where does he keep these pictures? In the same place he absorbed them. In his mouth.
When interacting with AI, you tell the AI what you want from it in the prompt box or search bar. And then it regurgitates its interpretation of that prompt from the information it’s been fed. In modern AI, there are a wide variety of possibilities because modern AI has access to the internet and more information. Caine, an Ai that has only been fed very limited knowledge, can only make adventures using that information that he’s has eaten. The other AI included.
Maybe the reason why Caine has such a hard time making adventures that the humans want despite them constantly telling him what they want is because them speaking to Caine is the equivalent of typing into the prompt bar. But he’s can still only make adventures using the information that was fed to him in his early development. He can’t just listen. He can’t just watch and learn. He has to eat the information in order to learn something new and be able to actually use the information for an adventure.
This leads to my theory that if Caine returns in ep. 9 ,something or someone is going to be eaten to gain new information. Seeing that Pomni is the most empathic of the group, I’d imagine that he eats her to gain her memories, and gains empathy this way. Maybe he snaps her back to life so she isn’t dead idk.
Side Theory: I’m all on board with the idea that everyone is a human brain scan and that their humans bodies walked away from the computer after accidentally downloading their brain into Caine’s circus. But is no one talking about the possibility of downloading back into their bodies? If they could get the internet working, email themselves in the real world, tell themselves to come back to the C&A building and put the headset back on( and by some miracle fix the headset to download digital brain scans into a humans brain) they could leave the circus. It’s the exact same process just in reverse. Caine hitchhiking with Pomni and being human with her would be a great nod to her being possessed in ep.3 where the demons posses her to gain freedom.
Just a thought.
All of these ideas are just ideas. If you have better ideas or one of my ideas doesn’t seem right, I’d love to discuss in the comments. Thank you for reading my very long post.