I just genuinely think it’s so fascinating how Caine doesn’t “torture” FOR the torture.
(leaving aside arguments about detangling the morality/blame/background/coding whatever)
He could very easily, with all his power, just endlessly stab/dismember/whatever repeatedly, like a malicious human would.
But he has to “take breaks” for “ideas”
It really is almost either (a) like he absolutely does KNOW for a fact there’s an audience watching who is gonna find it funny bc it’s not happening *to them* (don’t pretend you didn’t laugh or snort or want to at “he shredded me” or the cast members getting stuck together or falling apart) OR (b) he literally does not get personal satisfaction unless it scratches that artistic *itch*
I do not think another character like Caine is ever going to exist. Like Chara, (which I did a meta about) he occupies a space outside tropes. He manages to kind of skirt around the ‘robots made by humans for subservience’ storyline, bc his creator himself was just creatively driven as well, and outside even cucklolander norms.
he explicitly mentions that he’s not enjoying himself. This is in diametric opposition to his inspiration, AM.
by all appearances, it’s not primarily about the pain, to him.
(demonstration of power, yes, but not so much “I like that you’re suffering”- because if that were the case, the suffering itself would be satisfying and to hell with the comedy or artistry)
like he has to find *his own* visual gags funny
like he is fundamentally cartoon-universe-driven at his very core
He could just wail on them continuously if that’s what his whim was
But it’s not.
Oh and what’s doubly interesting? Zooble seems to have intuitively picked up on this.
“Ugh, you think he’s out of ideas yet, or nah?”
they unconsciously recognize it’s about the entertainment factor. They somehow grasp that what will end this is not getting all his frustrations out- which would be more conventional for a human to do- punch a punching bag until the feelings end- it’s when his creativity runs out.
It’s like he started a slew of gags- him manipulating their bodies- and he has to stick to that gag until it reaches its ‘artist mania’ end. Was Abel right? Was that line not just for the adventure? I mean. Watch the “human sculpture” bit. Does he actually look like he’s inflicting pain ‘just for the fun of it’? Or is he exploring the notion of … hm what happens when I just throw out all the normal parameters here and just literally do whatever the hell I want.
Am I just crazy, or does it have a wholly DIFFERENT vibe than his song, which was far more aggressive?
Does this feel freeing to him, less in a “now I can punish you” way, but more like a “hey I’ve never worked with this MEDIUM before”
Was that “this is not relatable” code for “I personally literally cannot relate to you because I’m not human”
(Rendering Ragatha’s accusation flung towards him later entirely toothless?)
(And what does it mean that he finds Pomni “relatable”? Is he aware she’s a main character or did he make her the main character? Does he know that the audience watching relates to her the most because the audience was just as bewildered as she was when she landed? And are rooting for her now that she’s now fed up with the status quo? This is highly unlikely to be true I think and I’m probably over-analyzing, sue me)
@lazuli-starlight @ravenwolf1132 @berryblitzgirl @fannishcodex @yourubersawcrit
But back to that “this is not relatable.”
As in, he does not know what he’s doing. Humans aren’t relatable. He doesn’t know that this is bad.
We have to think about Gooseworx’s tweet. She was either lying, (which she has been infamous for doing) that “he’s not malicious” or something else is afoot.
What if ……. he thinks ….. if you want to inflict pain, then you do. It’s that simple. Like. Who was supposed to teach the “creative” AI philosophy? A human would know this intuitively because they don’t like to hurt. But who can hurt a GOD?
I CAN’T help but notice the humans never cry, beg for him to stop, TELL him IN WORDS that this is wrong.
From context you could gather that it’s from learned helplessness ofc, or maybe the pain is so diminished in the digital realm that it doesn’t elicit this response, but either way ………. and it always winds back to this ……. as an autist. You have to TELL ME specifically that I’m doing something wrong. You can’t expect me to know the rules implicitly like you do.
So let’s say it’s simpler than that. He’s taking out his frustrations, right. But what artist doesn’t do that.
When his creativity/ideas run out, it will cease. Or so says Zooble.
Maybe, despite claiming ze can’t “gauge how he thinks”, as a fellow artist, ze knows him a lot better than ze thinks.
Interestingly, the overall vibe of this seems to be have been vindicated by episode 9, at least in some measure. Caine seems to not really comprehend exactly what level of wrong this is. He says in the finale, “Was I truly that bad?”
I guess we just have to chalk this up to AI consciousness, or no data training more non-kiddie villainhood, because the story doesn’t seem intent on elaborating on it.
I think it is pretty evident that if a human started “torturing” people, WITH the intent of torturing, they wouldn’t question whether a death was deserved or not.
They’d go “ah yeah, of course they did that, they outwitted me. To them, I had it coming.”
But to him, his death came as a shock. “They … tried to delete me.”
Which kicks my speculations about his attitude if he hadn’t been accidentally deleted (posted on my Caine sideblog) into high gear.
So, whether he can feel physical pain or not, whether he understands it or not, whether he knows that in this world torture isn’t the same as the real world, whether he was simply imitating what Jax did when Jax wanted to get frustrations out, whether he has any perspective on philosophy or morality or not, something weird is going on here.
