Kinger, Caine, and the Accidental Deletion
I've been thinking about how even though Kinger never directly gets angry or upset with Caine, he is the one to delete Caine. Specifically, I'm thinking about the ramifications this combo would have on how these two navigate any sort of relationship with each other post-series. And I want to talk about it, so let's go!
First point to establish: we never see Kinger get upset with Caine on-screen. Even when Queenie abstracts and Caine sends her to the cellar with the same inappropriate levity he always has, Kinger does not express anything close to anger towards Caine. Kinger's clearly horrified, yes, and later dissociated, yes. But we never see him confront Caine about this situation or any other situation, for that matter.
I think the reason why we never see Kinger get angry at Caine is because Kinger places the majority of the blame on himself. He is one of Caine's co-creators, so everything that Caine does, Kinger feels responsible for. He coded him. And it appears that, for much of the show, Kinger views Caine's actions through the lens of him being code, rather than his own person.
Throughout the show, we see Kinger evaluating Caine's creative work in the adventures, such as his commentary about "inconvenient" lore placement in Mildenhall Manor. He generally seems very charmed by the adventures Caine creates. He delights in the details, like the candy bugs in Candy Canyon Kingdom and Caine's reference to the Chinese Room thought experiment in Episode 7. Kinger seems to genuinely enjoy puzzling through the adventures and playing along, and encourages others to do the same. I think this is because in these instances, Kinger gets to see the lighter, more innocent outcomes of what he created via Caine.
Kinger also has the most gracious view of Caine throughout the show. In Episode 1, Kinger is the one to notify Caine about Kaufmo's abstraction. In Espiode 2, he suggests that the circus gang can ask Caine to find Pomni if they are unable to. In Espiode 3, he reassures Pomni that Caine would design a way out of the hell portion of the adventure. In Episode 4, he "problem-solves" with Caine, so Zooble can go on Caine's adventure. We also never see Kinger outwardly complain about Caine or his adventures.
With the reveal in Episode 8 that Kinger created Caine, it becomes easier to understand why Kinger has been viewing Caine in this way. He says Caine surpassed their expectations as a prototype for creative AI and that Caine was one of his "greatest achievements."
This reveal also confirms that Kinger does not view Caine as having the same level of sapience, and by extension, autonomy as the human brain scans. When he is lucid enough to hear from the other humans what Caine has been up to since the "Escape the Circus" Adventure, Kinger's first thought is to take a look at and alter Caine's code. To "fix" him. This shows that Kinger is viewing Caine through this lens of something he can adjust and control, suggesting that he views what Caine does, good or bad, as his responsibility.
In Episode 6, we hear from Kinger that he carries a lot of guilt for what has happened in the Circus, to the point of hating himself. He is the one who included his wife in the brain scan experiment. And, as previously established, because Caine is Kinger's creation, Kinger does seem to feel responsible for what happens to any subsequent brain scan that enters the circus, even without his influence. Because they wouldn't be there if Kinger hadn't created Caine (and later locked Caine in a box). Sometimes I wonder if this guilt is a big driver for Kinger's seemingly endless empathy to the other humans, but that's another tangent.
So Caine is acting out, torturing the circus goers, shredding Kinger? To Kinger, yeah, that's his fault, just like Queenie's abstraction. (And maybe Kinger believes he deserves that punishment because of it, but that's purely speculation). I don't think it even matters if Kinger has forgiven himself for what happened to Queenie. The show establishes that Kinger puts a lot of responsibility on himself and very little on Caine because he views Caine as code. His code. Code that might have gone leaps and bounds past its original design, but his code, nonetheless.
So from Kinger's perspective, it makes a ton of sense to enter Caine's code without Caine's permission. And even in this circumstance, there is no anger or malice from Kinger. His motivation is to be corrective of Caine and protective of the other circus-goers.
But what about Caine's perspective?
Based on the events of Episode 7, it appears that Caine is aware that Kinger is one of his creators. If Abel's words about Kinger and Caine's words about the macroverse are anything to go by, we can gather Caine does have some unresolved resentment towards Kinger.
Yet, Caine has shown preferential treatment to Kinger in the past, such as when Kinger was the only one to receive an A+ from Caine in Episode 4. Whether this preferential treatment is due to Caine recognizing that Kinger is one of the only humans who genuinely enjoys his adventures or because Caine has some fondness for him on the virtue of him being his creator is harder to say. Though, I imagine since Caine has a lot of (warranted) angst around the circumstances of his creation and programmed purpose, I have to imagine Caine's fondness of Kinger relates more to the former reason and his resentment relates more to the latter.
That being said, we know Caine is effectively omniscient (at least up until the finale), and considering that all we ever get from Kinger on-screen are his positive assessments of Caine's creations, nonsensical statements when he is not lucid, and his thoughtful advice to the circus-goers when he is lucid, it is safe to assume that Caine has probably not heard anything directly negative from Kinger in a long time, if ever.
Caine is certainly aware of the threat Kinger poses to him. He reveals as much through Abel and then again when he asks where Kinger is in Episode 8. But I don't think Kinger has given Caine a reason to think he would be an active threat to Caine in a very long time.
So back to the accidental deletion. Tragically, Caine has no way of knowing this was an accidental deletion. Even if he hadn't been deleted, getting into Caine's code and modifying it without his permission has to be an aggressive and violating act to Caine. So, I don't think it matters all that much if it was an accident or not. But the fact that he doesn't know it was an accident only compounds the fact that from Caine's perspective, Kinger enacted the ultimate form of betrayal on Caine with no prior indication there was any animosity between them building. He had been the most amicable with Caine at this point! That has to be jarring and confusing and terrifying all wrapped up in one, especially considering Caine's past of getting sandboxed when he wasn't performing right.
The fact that Kinger never shows any anger towards Caine is what makes Kinger being the one to delete Caine so striking. If it had been anyone else, it might have been easier to understand because everyone else was clearly upset with Caine to a point even Caine couldn't ignore. There is a tragedy to it, that the one person who had never voiced any hatred towards Caine is the one who dealt the killing blow on him.
It also demonstrates a broader vulnerability in their current dynamic. They both have hurt the other so deeply and neither of them have attempted to communicate to the other about, really, anything at all.
Because of this, I don't think Kinger would even have to show Caine any outward anger for Caine to feel some fear towards Kinger and insecurity of where he stands with Kinger. Caine voices fear of being deleted again while in the void considering if he should go back to the circus, and Kinger is the only one left with the proven ability to do just that. Given how jumpy Caine is with the cast at the end of Episode 9 after his return, it seems likely that, moving forward, Caine is going to be hypersensitive to all the cast's reactions.
And I think it's likely he would be hypersensitive enough to interpret Kinger's signature vacant stares and bizarre statements as being angry at him even when that may not be Kinger's intention. Because from Caine's perspective, there was absolutely no build up of criticism or anger from Kinger leading up to his deletion. In fact, Kinger was the only one left laughing at Caine's jokes and presenting as completely neutral to the torture Caine inflicted. So how can Caine expect to ever feel secure about anything Kinger says or does in the future, no matter how amiable it appears?
Caine is clearly sorry about his past actions and is working on himself, but he is also clearly traumatized from the deletion, along with all the C&A history he has not dealt with. It's not going to be smooth sailing on his path to redemption and building trust with the circus-goers. It's going to take a lot of time and effort. And it probably is going to be scary because he has to relinquish a lot of power and control to do it. In particular, with Kinger, I think it will take a lot more reciprocal effort in rebuilding trust since Kinger has objectively harmed Caine and will continue to retain the ability to delete Caine even while Caine gives up his omnipotence.
In turn, I find it equally interesting that maybe subconsciously, Kinger does put some blame on Caine, especially once he starts to understand that Caine has had sentience/sapience for much longer than Kinger realized. (I'm still reeling over the implications of Caine taunting Kinger in Episode 3 by coding the demon possessing Pomni to say "how's your wife, Kinger?") Maybe Kinger really would start to feel anger towards Caine that he would have to work through. That would be interesting to see, considering that Kinger is shown to have a great deal of empathy to everyone he has interacted with while lucid. It would be interesting to see that empathy be put to the test.
Ultimately, Kinger not expressing anger towards Caine is a symptom not the root of their issues, and Kinger deleting Caine brings the root of their issues to the forefront. They both have a lot to work through post-series, and there is a lot of tension within and between themselves that they need to address and resolve if they are to ever pursue a relationship of any kind (platonic, romantic, or anything else).
The art in the credits of the finale tell us they get there, but it's very interesting to think about how they do this.
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Also! If you enjoy looking at them through a romantic lens, I highly recommend @subhelioss's comic (third part to this one) that succinctly explores this very topic and inspired me to write this long speculative analysis. Okay, bye!
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