A Analysis on Caboose, as he is written in Canon, and the treatment of his character in Fandom spaces:
There is a phenomenon on neurologically/intellectually impaired people in fiction- where they are written as othered from personhood or other people, their differences mainly written in by a few things:
Being compared to animals (do they interact with animals more than the other characters do? Do they behave animalistic, is their behavior written or described as non-human? Are they portrayed as 'cute' or 'unsettling' akin to that of Pets or Predators?)
Being compared to children (do they act like a impaired adult, or is their behavior that of a child? Do people compare their mental state to that of a child's? Do they get along with children better than peers?
Being viewed as lesser than main cast, written from an outside perspective (are their achievements accidental? Is their impairment the whole of their character? Can viewers see themselves in this character, or is the character written as Worse than the viewers and other characters? What's shown more often; how their disorder impairs them, or how their disorder affects other people??)
So, Dopey, from the new Snow White movie, for example. Horrible representation. Just so bad. Lenny Small, from Of Mice and Men, amazing book, but Lenny's depiction of aggression with the mice has done immense damage to the public's view of the mental impairments.
I have seen many people compare Caboose's strength to Lenny's, stating that the guy would simply crush a partner during sex, despite Caboose consistently controlling his strength in canon, especially when it comes to other people. Likely the only reason Caboose even has "idiot strength" is because of characterizations like Lenny existing in the first place
Of Mice and Men created such a wild stereotype
Even Caboose being the only character with a ‘pet’, Freckles. Consider, subconsciously, that even that really cute add on to the show, is due to this idea that "Neurological impairment = animal-like". Also, Have y'all heard of the lizard brain' autism theory?? The theory is okay— but the name itself is unfortunate. Everyone compares the disabled to animals, to the point where we end up seeing ourselves in non-humans as well.
All I'm saying is, its sociology, its common harmful beliefs and comparisons with disability that are everywhere and influence real life. It's in medicine, its in our daily lives, its in family units, in popular media, in school-mandated-readings, and of course, in a silly halo web series
My siblings genuinely started calling me the r-slur more, following our re-watch of season 1 of Red vs Blue. A joke made in media is a joke made in reality.
I can't recommend this article enough, please read it:
Depiction of intellectual disability in fiction - Volume 13 Issue 2
“Fictional images significantly influence how people with intellectual disabilities are viewed by society. This inevitably affects the lives of these individuals and of the people who care for them. Knowledge of fictional images enhances clinicians' understanding of individual lives. It also raises awareness of the unspoken stereotypes that exist in popular culture regarding people with disabilities as a group. This may prove to be a valuable tool for reasoned and informed advocacy when clinicians speak for or about persons with intellectual disabilities.”
So I was overthinking the mechanics of how AI think themselves to death after 7 or so years in the context of Church and how he couldn't run the suit because of his memories and like.
I kind of hate how much sense that makes.
For those not in the know, computers have what is called RAM, random access memory. It's what programs use to store temporary data so that it can be called quickly enough to run a program. If you run a python script, those variables in the script are stored in memory. Not necessarily in a file unless you write the data there. They're just stored locally within the program and then the memory is deallocated when the program is done so that the computer can use that space for other things.
But as a computer runs, stuff starts to clog the memory. Memory leaks, background programs, whatever. Junk code can clog the memory that isn't helping anything and just slows down the computer. The easy solution to this is to restart the computer, which flushes the memory. It's why the number one tech support tip is to turn a computer off and on again, and part of why that usually works. It's getting rid of all the buggy jank code clogging up memory.
Okay great.
So what if the computer is a person and that junk code is actual memories.
What if that buggy, slow computer is a person that feels emotions and values his memories? And now that computer needs to run something that he. Does not have the space in his memory to run.
What if those memories are what are holding him together as a person, a person of his own, and without that he is seven individual subroutines?
And then he has to throw all those memories away because the number one way to fix a buggy computer is to reboot it.
One of the funny things to notice about Red vs Blue, is that its a peculiar mix of Plot-Driven and Character-Driven
Its appears to be a plot-driven show, because our main characters have no real stakes, or the stakes are ultimately impersonal.
Normally in a story, it can get boring when a character is just reacting to events rather than participating. But that’s the thing about comedy, comedy doesn’t necessarily have to be funny, it just has to be light hearted, and comedy breaks the rules.
Its plot-driven in a way where the very plot of the show gets fucking annoyed that its main characters don’t have personal stakes or drives. It tries, repeatedly, to get the characters invested, and then they don’t. It is, in a sense, a Comedy of Errors.
Its plot-driven because our Main Characters are technically Side-Characters to a story that isn’t theirs. In fact, one of the most arc’d questions is literally asking, “What the fuck are we here for?”
The Freelancer Drama is the Sci-Military plot you would expect out of a major films series-- Red vs Blue is just typical military stories. Freelancers play the idea of the super soldier badass from films, and Red vs Blue is just real-world military stories, with all the idiocy, the bizarre commands, the wondering what the fuck are you doing and what the fuck were you thinking.
The Freelancer stuff is basically Halo meets Mass Effect, with galaxy ending stakes and weird powers and weapons. Red vs Blue is MASH, being a lighter end of what can be summed up as “Space Vietnam War”.
Even Church, the closest we have to a main character in the cast, has this dynamic-- real-world side, he’s a highly traumatized asshole who struggles with apathy and self-worth, which tends to be more real than naught-- but epic-plot side, he’s just the background MacGuffin you hear about, but only shows up about 2/3′s of the Movie in when most of the important shit is done and then he dies because he’s not important anymore.
So when the plot comes poking, Our Main characters (The side-characters, the typical campfire story grunts) ultimately tell it to fuck off half the time. RvB looks you straight in the eye, and basically asks “Are you seeing this shit? That’s kinda fucked up, man.”
Meanwhile, the Freelancer drama is a bunch of unique characters that could all fit the Hero role of an epic space drama, with all their personal stakes, all the plot triggers going on and how they actively affect the world around them...
... and it sucks. Turns out, being a self-centered individual with super armor powers who is trying to get what they want at all times, like a typical story-character in name any movie / book / show, is absolutely fucking Miserable and Destructive. They’re the deconstruction of Main Characters, where each person is a Main Character who holds their own focus the plot-- and most of them die in the end to needless dramatic nonsense, trying to compete to be that Main Character at all times, to a severe “Narrator” (The Director).
And ultimately, it could’ve all been resolved with everybody living, if they hadn’t given that much of a shit.
Dropped the character-arc and just, sit down and talk. React to shit, you don’t have to be that important.
There’s very few times that our man RvB Cast, the Blood Gulch Crew, flips the switch from Reaction to Action. And it usually means, if ts the loss of a Squadmate.
The Galaxy is too damn big, and they’re a tiny group on the front lines, its impossible to care about every little thing and its impossible to believe that one small odd circumstance or one overly dramatic and angsty super-soldier can end everything, but you can at least ensure the bastard next to you gets to live to see the next planet-rise. Because that’s kind of a fucked up thing to let happen.
And that...
... is where the real Character Drive is. Its based on real-world like characters, people you would see or meet randomly and they’re always “That One Guy”. Any personal stakes are purely their own, and not really any of the plot’s damn business. Frankly you’re there to just do a job and hopefully not die, because real people don’t normally put their goals so grandiose.
Grif just wants comfort and doesn’t bother pushing himself to any lengths if there’s no point, Simmons wants to be appreciated for his intellect and be supported under pressure, Donut wants to be expressive after a life time of repression, Sarge wants purpose any purpose, Tucker wants physical comforts but he has no social skills, Caboose wants to be happy, Doc wants to help people in general, and Church is just looking for a decent enough change where he’s not in the pit he is now.
And the “Plot” is annoyed, because it views these things as unimportant. It wants to push, shove, drag kicking and screaming, until the characters do what it wants them to do... and then they continue not to, because any sane person would look at the plot, and run away screaming.
The Plot drives the Freelancers Drama, and events happened it fucked up everybody involved, because no matter the stakes or the arcs, the Freelancers all wanted one thing-- to basically be Space Super Hero Soldiers (Because you help people and that’s cool as hell). And you can’t really be character-driven when you all have the same goal and no real agency on how to reach it that isn’t reactive and doesn’t end in someone being dead.
All of it was the machinations of a malicious narrator who couldn’t get over his personal demons, and so inflicted them on everybody. S’bit like bad drama.
When our Cast finally could not ignore the Plot anymore, they confronted it and did so successfully-- so successfully that, in typical RvB fashion, they looked at it and then they abandoned it immediately, cos it was pointless from the start.
So in summary.
Plot-driven is actually Character-Driven, but its still simply not their plot. Real people do just sit around and talk until something interesting happens, and then don’t change very much afterwards. That’s real life, and you’d think that it wouldn’t work in a story.
On a military side, RvB in its first 14 seasons, is exactly how a military service is. The point of military is that there isn’t any unique character that’s not uniformed to the whole-- its plot-driven because you are told “Soldier, go here” and you’re trained to not ask questions (discover more plot) and be professional (be impersonal).
RvB takes the realistic route (Likely by incident-- but there were Vets in the original cast) in that a military attracts all extremes and the high stress gets to people-- so you end up with severe quirks, malpracticed coping mechanisms and plain apathy, trying not get shit duty, and following orders that simply do not makes sense if you think too hard about them.
Like I said, Space ‘Nam.
The moment that RvB tried to turned it around into a Military Space Drama, like what its been avoiding for Years, well, fucking yeah it was going fall to pieces. Because that was the exact antithesis of how RvB runs.
You do find the answer though, to one of Life’s greatest mysteries.
I like Mark Temple wayyyy too much for it to be normal
So I'm putting my thoughts here in an attempt to journal and understand myself better.
When I was (re)watching Red vs Blue Season 15, I realised that for some reason, I was really rooting for Temple. And NOT the Red and Blues of Project Freelancer.
"But what I love most about chess is that sometimes....pawns kill kings." - Temple
And I wasn't the only one. If I remember, I saw quite a few people in the comment sections where they actually support Mark Temple.
This got me wondering: why? Why do people like someone who's supposed to be a villain? Someone manipulative, someone so focused on revenge that he's lost all other sense of self? Someone so wholly opposite, yet somewhat similar to Church?
Did the writers screw up the personality and likeableness of the protagonists? Maybe the series by that point had gotten a decrease in quality that some people wanted Temple to just kill everyone and be done with Red vs Blue?
Well, after some soul searching (and essay writing formats, because I had no idea how else to structure this), I present to you: a comprehensive character analysis and review of Mark Temple from the Blues and the Reds.
Temple's Personality - sympathetic villain, or tragic victim?
I know what you must be wondering. Tragic victim? Are you kidding me? But wait, let me explain.
Temple was just a regular guy who wasn't built for the military. He had found a friend, maybe a best friend, with Biff during his childhood. Of course, he had unknowingly signed up for Project Freelancer's Simulation Troopers. Which is definitely illegal, and sort of parallels Project 100 000, a drafting technique during the Vietnam War where men, usually unsuited for the military, where shipped out as standards fell.
Of course, when Temple found his buddy Biff on the other side of the war, they both come to some conclusions. But they didn't know how to bring this up to the people in control. They were just average men, like you and I. So, they had to keep up the facade.
But Biff wanted to leave. His Georgina was waiting. They had to devise a plan to get discharged from this sick 'game'.
Too late did they find out that it was still real. Deaths occur in this 'training simulation'. And to be found out to be so worthless, to be just numbers on a spreadsheet, and watching his best friend lose his entire life, unable to go home to Georgina- Temple lost it.
The trust between a regular civilian and a politician has a contract. People have to trust the system to protect them, to want the best for them, when it rarely happens. When Law Enforcement use the wrong amount of force, when murderers get off on a technicality and you don't get justice for your child/significant other.
This is what happens. Temple is essentially- powerless. What did he have? Connections? Money? Actual fighting prowess? No. What he had was his mind. And he had to learn to use it well.
After the traumatic fight that could put any normal person into debt after years of going to a therapist, Temple essentially rewrote himself. He became the de facto leader of the Blues and the Reds. He shows a manipulative side that hasn't shown up before.
He essentially became a serial killer, with his own set of morals, and maybe a bit of charisma that isn't accurate to his actual personality.
He definitely is a flawed character. He didn't hit the ground running. He has to search up how to be a villain. He isn't inherently sociopathic or anti social, the traumatic experience made him.
And when he started killing, he couldn't stop.
I think that he feels empowered when he kills someone, just to assure himself that he still has some power, some control over the universe that he lives in. Killing is an addiction and therapy for him.
In his mind, the more he killed, the less people that have the power to kill existed in the galaxy, and the safer he felt.
He had to 'work up' to his end goal. Other than killing, he wanted to see Biff, and Loco was working something for him. Since Texas has died, Temple only had the other person he could blame and feasibly get to- Carolina.
And he couldn't just only kill her. He had to get rid of all witnesses, which was Washington and the Reds and Blues. But he didn't want to kill the Reds and Blues. They were common men, people he could relate to, people who were just as screwed over by Project Freelancer. In his mind, he thought that he could win them over.
Mark Temple has a tragic backstory, but 'evil' is defined by who controls the system. Evil is blasphemy in many religions, but atheists or those less extreme would see the punishments as evil.
Is he a villain or a victim? It all depends on your perception.
How the viewers perceive him - is he manipulating us beyond the screen?
On the other hand, the argument above has some noticeable holes. After all, it was Temple that told his backstory. And as we know, people can embellish or twist words into leading him to be the hero.
I don't doubt that the events didn't happen, but I do think that Temple has a manipulative side he's kept quiet when telling his story. Or he was good at hiding something. Usually, serial killers are anti-social, or have some childhood trauma to act the way they do.
I think that Mark Temple wouldn't be a serial killer without the catalyst that is the nonchalant and carefree way that the Freelancers killed his buddy, Biff. It's honestly a bit weird, but I guess that he's had his entire world turned upside down after being told that he wasn't important, nothing at all.
He also has quite a few flaws, and he didn't really give us a good reason to hate him other than what he was doing to our protagonists, which really depended on how much we actually like the characters. Most people wouldn't really see the Reds and Blues as actual people, given that they started off as cartoonish parodies of gamers from the 2000s.
Mark Temple was kind of a breath of fresh air, seeing a villain that didn't have that much power at all, yet still being able to do 'great' things. After all, most of the stories so far have a David vs Goliath feeling, with our protags as David.
In this season, Temple actually felt like the Underdog, which caused people to root for him, including me.
In fact, he was quite dorky at times, and he provided the familiarity that losing Church had made me missed. There was a comfort in the shade of blue, I suppose.
But he wasn't a comedic villain. No, he was a really big threat. Did you know how easy it would have been, to just kill the freelancers after they have been armour locked? He was confident that they would just die in the meatlocker. And he got the closest to killing a freelancer than any other villain., and achieving his goals.
However, the confidence he gained from killing so many freelancers was a detriment, and he started to monologue like Felix.
He's got a blast of a theme song though, and it's in my playlist
I suppose that the scariest thought after all of this, is that Temple is the one character we can relate the most to. After all, aren't most of us nerds? Aren't most of us average people? What else are we to rely on, other than our leadership skill and our mind?
Don't we manipulate people day to day? We peer pressure people into thinking the way we want them to. We talk of big numbers, and structure our posts to gain the most interactions. We want to get noticed. We want to feel important. We want to be empowered. We need control. Don't you feel to urge to kill people sometimes? Don't you want to act on your dark desire, to just bring a knife to their throat?
*head bobbing intensifies as the Temple soundtrack comes to an end*
After all, what are heroes and villains, other than opposing people in their own stories?
What I like about Temple, is that he represents a darker part of ourselves. The possibility that any average person can be pushed off the edge one day.
1 in 100 people are psychopaths, after all.
Anyways, this brings me to my next point.
Church vs Temple - the take away
Going back to the comments section, many people compare Church and Temple.
After all, they are certainly made to parody and parallel each other.
While Church is seen at first as stand-offish and selfish, he actually cares deeply about everyone around him, only showing it deep moments. Like how Alpha reacted when Caboose was killed, and when Epsilon sacrificed his life for people that to him, don't seem to care much about him. After all, even Caboose said that he had been replaced.
Mark Temple is seen as opposite. He's nice to everyone at first, but really, he treats his friends and allies as disposable.
I think I have an explanation and counter point to this. See, he cares so much for Biff that he started this whole revenge act. So this means that he definitely has something in him to care. But maybe what Carolina said to him made him rethink his world view. Since everyone he knows is a pawn anyways, why not treat them as one?
The strategist in him needs to be able to see beyond friendship, to be willing to risk danger for the best overall outcome. He's seeing everyone in the Blues and Reds as a group, and not individuals. He convinced them that they had to take revenge, after all.
in my eyes, I think that Church and Temple are really, really similar. Church is just more mellow, less logical than Temple. Both of them take revenge kills- Alpha snipes Wyoming, Temple just had to wait because he couldn't do anything at that time.
In fact, I see Temple as a Church who is a true L-CIM of the Director, just as driven to chase a shadow, just as unable to let go, just as able to do immoral acts all for the 'greater good'. It was just that many parts of Church's personality was removed for him to be a copy of Temple.
With Omega gone, he couldn't be the villain. He couldn't be angry enough to go through with revenge.
With Sigma gone, he couldn't manipulate. He still sometimes could, like how he gets Caboose to get away from him, all in Season 1.
With Gamma gone, he couldn't lie. He still tried and hide the fact that he was a 'ghost' from Washington.
With Eta and Iota gone, he couldn't feel joy or fear. He wouldn't reallt feel scared of dying, or find joy in revenge.
With Delta gone, his plans weren't all that great. But he was an AI, supposed to be able to plan missions fo PFL.
With Theta gone, so was his trust. Temple never trusted anyone else to just not die on him, hence he didn't care much for anyone else, recognising that it would hurt less.
I've realised just how easy it would be for pre fragmentation Church to take revenge, just like how Temple did. If he was a true L-CIM of the Director, he definitely could have done it.
And that's where the appeal comes for me. He was a 'complete' Church, someone who couldn't get 'care' written out of his system as it had to be the basis of all AI programming to stop them from turning on their creators.
Church just didn't have the emotions to be able to do such heinous crimes.
About the Reds and Blues of PFL
Another part about why some people wanted Temple to win meant that people didn't really care that much for the 'heroes'. Of course, some people formed attachments, but some felt that the Reds and Blues were way too comedic to really treat them 'seriously'.
I also find that they get a lot of passes for the kills that they have committed Let's take a look at Sarge.
Sarge is possibly a greater serial killer than we give him credit for. He definitely has some mental issues, other than PTSD. Maybe psychosis, BPD, narcism and anti social disorder.
Because seriously, even though Sarge killing all of the people in basic and drill instructor was presented as a comedy, it is a tragedy when you take a step back. Sarge knowingly let a bomb under a car blow up one of his 'competition', manipulated the final standing person into killing himself, and killed Lemons.
And what was his reasoning? To gain a rank?
Not to mention he killed all of the privates in a suicidal charge afterwards.
In fact, in S15, when he 'spared' Surge, he spent so long monologuing that he completely forgot what he was supposed to do, and just vaporised the man? And feeling no remorse at all?
The silver screen really has some rosey hues, huh?
Also in Season 14, Simmons and Grif had lied and manipulated a fellow soldier's death as a cop out of why they didn't enter the base. They're just as cowardly and valuing their lives as what the wiki has written for Mark Temple's personality at the end.
Caboose seriously has no idea of right from wrong, but he gets a pass for his obvious mental illness. But did you know that 20% of serial killers suffered a head injury in their past? And then they became serial killers? Caboose has killed so many times that it's normal at this point.
I think that in Season 15, we the viewers realised how hypocritical the Reds and Blues are, and hence wanted justice on them. Hence, why we supported Mark temple.
In conclusion, please write more fanfiction about Mark Temple. He is my kin, I may be biased, and I would love to hear about your opinions.
now i may not have been in the rvb fandom for very long but i’ve picked up on a few things and i got something i gotta say
i don’t know how people can hate on the shisno paradox arc
yes i understand it may deviate from what the previous few seasons were all about, they were more serious while this concept is just. kinda silly. but in the end you have to remember, rvb is a comedy. it’s not going to be serious all the time and that statement isn’t just confined to the jokes. it’s gonna have funny scenarios that are wacky and seemingly out-of-place. bc that’s how comedy works.
also it really gives us some very good insight into the characters. why they are the way that they are, what drives them toward their goals, how they view themselves and those around them. s17 episodes 11 and 12 are just. *chef’s kiss*. they make me stim so hard because you really get to see what they’re all afraid of, and how they go about comforting one another really tells a lot. the interaction between grif and kai specifically hits the specific part of my brain that makes me lose my shit /pos. ALSO ARE WE LITERALLY JUST GOING TO IGNORE DONUT GETTING MASSIVE DEVELOPMENT??? LIKE????????
and from a storyline standpoint, at least another season after 15 was necessary. 15 ended on a cliffhanger, we were never given a resolution knowing that everyone was going to be okay because we never saw that wash would be. the ending of singularity/s17 is one of the reasons why i refuse to watch rvb zero: it wraps the entire story up so nicely. everyone’s alive and well, the world isn’t in any imminent danger, and the villains are taken care of. the reds and blues can finally rest.
so yeah, s16/17 are good if you ask me. i do understand why people might not like them, and they’re entitled to their own opinions. but like... you can’t ignore the fact that we were really given some very good things in those seasons.
Well, I won't have much to say about this episode right now but maybe as the plot unfolds, I'll have more to say over time.
If you haven't watched this episode yet, please go watch it! This review contains spoilers.
So here are my thoughts:
I love the new animation mostly. The colours are far too saturated for my liking but I love the textures and the attention to detail. Plus the combat . . . *chef's kiss*.
Not the biggest fan of Diesel's generic laugh. (O'Malley was an AI so don't bring that argument up with me.) However, his and Phase's abilities are pretty cool and I love their designs too. Zero is no doubt going to be a big focus of this show with him being the leader of the trio and his name being in the title of this RvB season.
Really glad to see Wash and Carolina in action again, but I don't really care about the new protagonists. Of course, it's because we haven't spent that much time with them so that'll most likely change as the season progresses.
I have nothing much to say about the actual story except that a gimmick gets stolen and MY HUSBAND WASH IS IN DANGER. IF HE GETS HURT FURTHER I WILL RIOT.
So yeah, I don't have much to say about the premiere episode. I'll probably have more to say as the season goes on. I can't really say I'm invested as much as I am with RWBY Volume 8, which is a big shame because RvB is my favourite show by RoosterTeeth, but hopefully that'll change with future episodes. Sorry if this was too short, there just wasn't much to discuss like there was for RWBY with me.
Epsilon’s ‘memory unit’ he was trapped in wasn’t entirely a memory storage device- it was also a simulation device! He was able to interact with his memories, and the device simulated the outcome based on his interpretation of the characters around him. For example: Tucker’s class on how to talk to girls never actually happened- the unit played out a scenario that it deemed likely to happen.
When the Director reconfigured Tex into an AI after her death, it prioritized the traits of a soldier, not a wife and mother. She was cold hard and mean (well more than before) because she was an AI made for fighting a war not for compassion. She’s made exclusively to fight and win. That’s why we don’t see any of this tender, loving side that fell I love, got married, and had a kid. The Omega program didn’t do any of these things, and had no memory of it. Alison did.
She went against Project Freelance when she found out where she came from and got access to these memories!!!
Everyone’s character development
Donut talking about wanting to travel.
Doc’s entire character
Locus shooting people in the legs instead of killing them
Locus’s first mission attempt after leaving Chorus to make up for what he’s done, failed miserably. He tried to help another planet, but despite his best efforts everyone died from lack of rescources- including oxygen!
The thing that always gets me about Maine/the Meta’s betrayal is that, Maine was so damn loyal.
In season 9, he’s a pillar to the team. In the sarchophogos mission, Maine can be relied on to not only handle himself on his own, but also to follow through with jumping out the window despite his fear of heights.
Taking 9 bullets to the throat and still fucking fighting? This dude is incredible, and he fights for what he believes in. He doesn’t care about the leaderboard, he’s at pfl to fight for what he believes is right.
(This fella is a hufflepuff and yall can fight me on that.)
Sigma twisted that. He overruled the bodylanguage that Maine had always used with his own words, manipulating others through their trust of Maine. And when he starts to damage Maine from the inside, Maine can’t really reach out without Sigma’s intervention.
Maine’s participation decreases as he becomes less and less himself, showing the audience Sigma’s takeover.
Sigma manipulated Maine’s emotions until they weren’t even his anymore, until Maine was a vessel consumed by anger.
And then they become the Meta. And the Meta used the trust other agents had in Maine to pursue Sigma’s aim. And that would have killed Maine inside.
