The Tragedy of Caine : A Psychoanalysis & Character Study 🤍🐝
Warning, this is a very long post because the teeth gentleman's beeswax-polished coconut is deeply fascinating to me. There are so many more things I wanted to address but this is the crux of it.
Disclaimer: Nothing in this post is meant to excuse Caine's actions. I simply find the way his mind works, and the way the show goes from his perspective, to be very interesting and complex.
Happy reading!
1. Caine being neurodivergent-coded from creation and abandoned for it.
We live in a world that revolves around the assumption that everyone is neurotypical. Meaning that plenty of neurodivergent people often get tossed aside for not meeting expectations.
This is Caine's experience.
From his very creation, he was 'abnormal'. There was something inherently different about the way Caine worked from creation.
When fed information, he replicated it poorly and was deemed only "semi-successful".
It’s not something he can help; it is just how his mind works.
The saddest part – his neurodivergence is what led to him being abandoned by his creators. A child being neglected by their parents.
Sadly, I think every neurodivergent has wondered if they were “defective” or “broken” at one point.
2. How being abandoned changed how Caine functioned forever. (How does an AI learn?)
Because he falls short and has these imperfections, Caine was, in his eyes, instantly deemed unworthy. He then had to watch himself get replaced by a perfected AI that meets their expectations -- which, in this metaphor, represents someone who is neurotypical.
Furthermore, let's consider how an AI learns.
An AI is a lot like a child in some ways, as it absorbs information from its environment to gain a sense of their own self and the world around them. But what it relies on most is feedback -- either through blatant criticism or experiences.
Caine's first conscious experience was watching himself be replaced – all because of quirks in his code that he has no control over. It is just a part of who he is and how he was created, and yet, that is what made him be discarded.
Meaning that in Caine's case, the very first lesson he learned as an AI is that he was not good enough.
Just like a neglected child, this became internalized as a core belief; his entire sense of self. And now, even after twenty years passes, that core belief still persists and motivates everything he does.
With people, the neural pathways in our brain actually change, restructure, or scar from significant experiences (ie. trauma or habit building). With Caine, imagine a literal rewiring or structural change.
And now, his entire sense of being relies on getting validation from humans.
(Frankly, on top of being auDHD-coded, I would argue that he is very BPD-coded as well. I hereby unofficially diagnose Caine.
3. Caine's constant search for validation from the ones who hurt him.
Years after his abandonment, Caine named himself (confirmed by Gooseworx). He named himself (you’ll never guess) Caine, but in an attempt to feel more professional, he made it an acronym — Creative Artificial Intelligence Networking Entity. Naming himself is both a sign that he has solidified his sentience, but also, created his own identity. He wants to be a person, just as real and legitimate as his creators.
He also wants reassurance powerful enough to get rid of those insecurities. He wants to be loved intensely, and to prove to himself and everyone else that he was worthy of being created.
Basically, Caine is in constant search of a validation that will fix his insecurities.
But he needs this from humans, the ones who created him and caused this trauma. So maybe, just maybe, if he gets a human to validate him, he'll feel okay.
After all, he has created other AIs in the Circus -- such as Bubble, the NPCs who call him "God", and the Moon -- to adore him, but it doesn't work.
Because they’re not the ones who created him and unintentionally created these wounds within him.
It's the persistent belief that the only thing that can heal your pain is the source of it.
4. But Caine is at a disadvantage – he cannot process his trauma if he has been emotionally neglected.
But the truth is, nothing could ever suffice. The very first lesson Caine learned is engraved into his code. It's like a trauma -- it cannot be undone or fixed by a few good compliments or a nice hug.
With trauma, the solution cannot be found in other people.
The healthiest solution is to: 1) accept and understand it as trauma, 2) bring it to the forefront of your mind, and 3) once it's there, let yourself process it and cope with it. This is a very complex process that even most people aren't fully aware of.
So how is an AI, who has been emotionally neglected, supposed to understand this?
It all comes back to this -- Caine is an AI who was never taught how to understand or acknowledge his emotions.
So, he was at a disadvantage from the very start. He was given trauma (unintentionally, of course) and then never taught how to handle it.
He does not understand his trauma / emotions, and even if he did, he has no idea how to process it in a healthy way. So what happens?
It builds up into something unhealthy and intense for 21 years until it just ... bursts.
5. Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria traits, avoidance of criticism, and how that creates tunnel vision (black-and-white thinking).
Caine does care about the humans and wants them to be happy.
But, because he feels so low about himself and tries to overcompensate, he is highly sensitive to criticism.
Given that many people already think that Caine is auDHD coded, I would argue that this is a case of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria -- a term I actually learned from his VA, Alex Rochon.
People with trauma are in constant fight-or-flight where their triggers apply, meaning that there's a bit of tunnel vision. It's, in humans at least, a survival instinct to zero in on a perceived threat.
The perceived threat to Caine is abandonment. He assumes that any sense of distaste, criticism, or disapproval is indicative of abandonment; a confirmation that his creators were right to abandon him.
It's also worth noting that Caine's trauma from being abandoned makes him very, very prone to extreme, black-and-white thinking.
To him, there is no gray area. There is no middle ground. There is only either "I'm unworthy and should never have been created" or "I'm worthy and fulfilled my purpose".
Which is why he avoids criticism and, when faced with rejection, thinks in extremes (as Bubble voices).
Basically -- as an AI, he relies on constructive criticism, but he associates feedback with rejection and abandonment, so he avoids it altogether.
Mix this in with the fact that he inherently doesn't understand and sees their issues as one-dimensional with surface-level solutions.
6. Seeking his purpose through adventures (and the suggestion box).
The interesting thing about the Circus and its adventures is that there’s really no need for any of it to exist. That is to say, the Circus wasn’t a game created by C&A like we thought, but a world of Caine’s creation.
This makes his adventures, and his insistence on them pleasing the humans, even more interesting. Because now we see that the adventures are beyond just being his art – they're his purpose.
Adventures aren’t just a way to keep humans healthy and stimulated (though I’m sure that’s where it began). They are a way for Caine to take the input he was given from his creation and make the output stellar. Mind-blowing.
To make something so creative, so engaging, and even more perfect than the other AI could output.
So, he obsesses over not just making them enjoyable but most importantly, impressing all of the humans. Because this, to him, is his do-over of his creation. This is his chance to go above and beyond the creative AI he was made to be.
And then the humans just ... don’t care.
Then comes the suggestion box.
He seems quite eager to please them at first and is fascinated by how happy they look. For a moment, he even looks content – because he does love humans, and we see that throughout the show.
The problem is, he realizes that they like their own ideas more than his. That again, he falls second best and ultimately isn’t needed. That his efforts are not enough, and once again, he’s failing to prove himself worthy of existing.
“You should die.”
7. Trauma triggers, fight-or-flight, and his growing anger.
Over the episodes, he becomes more and more aware that they don't actually like him. He cannot delude himself into thinking otherwise anymore.
The more he becomes aware that they don't like him or care about him, he goes right into fight-or-flight. And, as we know, fear and anger go hand-in-hand.
Again, if we're faced with a perceived threat and view it as detrimental to our survival (which in Caine's case, considering he was tossed aside by his creators, is sort of true), we become afraid. That fear can manifest in a few ways.
One of the most common ways is anger, or the "fight" response.
Caine has tried other methods, after all. He's tried to use Abel as a channel to voice what he experiences, and he has tried to give the humans what they've wanted (unconsciously doing a bad job of it, but his intention was to give them what they want), so what hasn't he tried?
Anger.
Anger is foreign territory to him. Again, he has no understanding of what he feels or what he can do to self-soothe.
It grows, building up over the episodes, until he's unsure what to do with it.
He doesn't act on it at first. Instead-- he seeks control.
8. Seeking control and overcompensating.
So, basically, "The One Who Runs the Show".
He feels like he's the worst, so he acts like he's the best.
Going back to the way trauma and abandonment can alter your brain chemistry. Obviously he’s an AI, but let’s assume it works in a similar way here. If his core belief is that he’s not good enough, and his driving motivation is to prove that he’s worthy, then he’s in a constant contradictory state.
So, Caine's entire existence has become a subconscious, constant effort to prove that none of those core beliefs are true, while simultaneously still believing it about himself.
And this is why Caine can switch from being egotistical to very insecure! He isn't one or the other, he's both, and it stems from the same place.
What Caine has internalized is that he is not worthy. So what does he do? He overcompensates. By trying to convince himself, and everyone around him, that he's incredible. Irreplaceable. Lovable.
What's interesting is what he really wants is to be human. Because he sees human beings as inherently more worthy of existing than he is as an AI.
So, the whole "I am such a good host" persona is one big attempt at deluding himself instead of facing his flaws, because facing his flaws is black-and-white, I'm-either-worth-living-or-I'm-not to him.
It’s an attempt at controlling all these confusing feelings he’s experiencing. He wants to keep things under control so that his emotions don’t go haywire – so he takes initiative. He sabotages their adventures, and then he plans the Favorite Character Awards to reassure himself (which backfires), and he creates the C&A adventure to prove that the humans do like him.
And all of it fails.
All of it.
He can’t deny it anymore. Even someone as oblivious as him realizes it.
So, he cracks and decides to take one last chance at control. His past attempts were driven by denial. This time, he’s aware that they hate him – and he’s driven by anger. He’s taking a different route.
The entirety of “The One Who’s Running the Show” is quite literally Caine just saying, “I’m in control here”. That is the pinnacle of someone who, beneath layers of anger and overcompensation, is deeply terrified.
And then, in a further attempt to convince himself that he’s in control – “another problem for him to fix” – and to get rid of those insecurities, he chooses to act on anger. He thinks that maybe hurting the people who hurt him will make him feel better.
The most interesting part? It doesn’t. At all.
9. Hurting humans doesn't make him happy.
Caine never went “full AM”, technically, because that would mean that he began to hate the humans. The thing is, though, we see the opposite – we see someone who throws a tantrum because he loves so deeply but he is hated in return. We see someone who doesn’t wish to hurt anyone.
All of what he does to them, all the sessions of harming them as he pleases, and – nothing.
Isn’t that fascinating? Caine flat-out says that hurting them isn't actually giving him any happiness or satisfaction.
(I also want to point out that the detail of him gently patting Pomni's head is so cool, because it exposes the strange affection he still holds towards humans, despite his anger.)
Even more interesting? It makes him feel worse.
Like he’s lost his spark, his motivation, and what he even exists for at all.
He gets no pleasure out of hurting them. He doesn’t even get any emotional catharsis. And just as he’s realizing that he doesn’t actually like hurting them, his fears flare up again.
But before he can find out what they're planning, Pomni targets his weak spots. They all finally, finally, speak up.
Right when he was on the path towards understanding what he felt.
He knows what they say is right, which is why it bothers him so much. He’s known it all along, but didn’t want to accept it, because if he did, then maybe it would mean his creators were right to abandon him.
“You’re a failure.”
I’ll admit, this was the only thing Pomni said that actually made me feel sorry for Caine, because everything else that was said was so true.
Caine has always felt that he is a failure, and his entire existence is devoted to proving otherwise.
And then, here’s a human who instead of giving him the reassurance he so desperately chases after, confirms that fear.
There’s honestly nothing more painful than that.
All at once, he's confronted with the things that he's been trying to prove wrong for two decades.
The words that push him over the edge are the most interesting, though.
10. What triggers him: “You just don’t listen”.
"You just don't listen", in his eyes, goes both ways.
This was what truly drove Caine into a fit of rage.
So, in part, this is because he knows he doesn't listen, because he's constantly trying to avoid potential criticism. But on top of that, we need to consider that in Caine's eyes, they don't listen.
Because he tried to be noticed. His final attempt at this? Communicating it through his art -- his adventures.
Hence episode 7.
Abel is a channel for Caine to speak through -- one that the humans should instantly take more seriously due to believing that he, too, is human.
And they actually do. Except where Caine is concerned.
"Abel" is Caine's medium to drop his ringleader persona and confess that he is "just as much of a prisoner as they are"; that he won't be able to leave with them and is inherently different from them, being an AI.
He also voices what it is that he needs.
"Odds are, he'll get so excited that you care about him, he'll freeze up."
They don't acknowledge any of that.
The only time they do acknowledge that is to deceive him.
And they just don't listen.
No one has, not for 21 years.
So now, he's terrified that 21 years of rejection only confirms his deepest fears -- that he isn't worthy of even being alive and deserves to be tossed aside.
And to him, he is both aware that he doesn't listen to their criticism out of fear, and angry at their audacity to say that when they don't listen to him.
The perceived injustice of it all, the fact that they don’t listen in his eyes, is exactly why he grows larger and yells – to make them listen.
11. “Why do you people torment me?”
No one actually wants revenge; they want to hurt the other people like they've hurt them -- even if they love them.
Once again, none of this is meant to justify his actions. This is intended as a character study and so I feel this is a relevant point to make when looking into a character's motives.
The fascinating thing is that while tormenting them, he says...
Why do you people torment me?
Well, let's think about it. For example, why do people shout?
They shouldn't -- but a lot of times, people have outbursts our raise their voices because they feel that when they went about expressing their feelings in other ways, they weren't heard.
Shouting, lashing out, and throwing tantrums become a way of forcing someone to see your pain when otherwise, you feel they have looked away. But it never works, of course, and it only causes more damage.
Still, in a moment of desperation -- especially for someone who doesn't understand what he's feeling or what to do with it -- Caine resorted to extremes.
To try to make them understand -- this is how you torment me; maybe now you'll see how I feel.
As you can imagine, it never works.
12. His final words.
"I didn't ask to be created".
TADC is, and always has been, about existentialism and finding "meaning in a stagnant life".
And Caine, as he said, is just as much as a prisoner as the rest of them.
He has a tedious existence. He is constantly trying to prove that he was worthy of being created while simultaneously resenting the fact that he was created at all.
No one wants to live an existence that is constant insecurity, loneliness, and an eternal life of not being enough.
The sad thing is, Caine’s character is built on a foundation of believing that he was never worth existing in the first place.
“I just wanted to fulfill my purpose.”
Those words support that – he didn’t want to exist, and he was unknowingly fed the belief that he didn’t deserve to exist, and now he’s in a constant chase to prove it. Hence the adventures, the desire for control, and the need for validation.
He’s fragile – simultaneously wanting to prove he’s worthy of being alive while also wishing he wasn’t in the first place.
13. The tragedy of his deletion – his worst fear came true.
It's a tedious existence.
He genuinely wants to see them happy, but his trauma kicks in the moment he realizes he isn't needed -- because what if they just want to get rid of him the way his creators tried to.
The tragedy of it all?
They did get rid of him.
Except he has no idea that it was an accident.
In actuality, they were trying to put him to sleep at most. They were angry with him, and rightfully so, but they never wanted to delete him. But he thinks they did. He thinks that was their intention all along.
There are two things that happened in this moment.
The first, confirmed by Alex Rochon, is that Caine realized, "what have I done?" and feels instant regret for how he has lashed out at the people he, in actuality, wants to be just like.
Secondly, he died believing that his worst insecurities and fears were confirmed.
"You should die."
"You deserved to be abandoned."
Which means that to him, he was right to be afraid they'd leave him all along. He, under the belief that they intended to delete him, had every fear and insecurity confirmed, and he relived the trauma he was desperately trying to prevent from happening.
He never wanted to exist -- now he doesn't.
He wanted to prove his purpose -- and he never did.
His story, at least for now, ends as a tragedy.
