no NO episode 8 just gets WORSE the more I think about it.
"they'd rather Abstract than go on your adventures" Bubble says at the beginning of his exchange of abuse.
Zooble says: "And if we refuse?"
confirmation to Caine that this is true.
They'd rather go unengaged and Abstract than go on adventures.
Pilot Caine wouldn't have believed this.
He lets Zooble skip TWO adventures, and the at the start of the in-house adventure, it is shown that he already is quite accustomed and (relatively) unbothered by Zooble's past skipping.
Zooble getting involved in the Gloinks was pure fluke.
The only reason he asks zem to go in 6 was to have even numbers. Basically asking zem, "please just do this one, and you can skip the next."
Zooble going on 4 was some random thing that he may have thought was funny, or maybe he was looking for an excuse to push them because THEY were the ones who brought up the Suggestions Box, why would they THEN reject their OWN demand?
And 5? I mean it was obvious . . . they got under his skin. Had they not sniped at the very thing they knew made him insecure, they'd be reading a magazine the next day while everyone else went on adventures, just like they had in the beginning of that scene.
"Speak for yourself," Pilot!Zooble retorts to Ragatha, claiming adventures stave off Abstraction. (they may for Ragatha, but not for Pomni or Zooble)
He clearly doesn't like it, but he lets them be, for the most part.
"That's what this is. A big puzzle that needs solving."
^THIS right here. Was Caine's actual Self. He was going to continue to try. He was going to continue to TRY to figure out humans (even though the hope of doing so was feeling slimmer and slimmer, the way he thought he lost Jax.)
But Bubble has cleverly planted this NEW terror into him.
Adventures should be MANDATORY.
He doesn't say it in as many words. But, in Caine's very vulnerable moment, the sadistic maniac has deeply imprinted a false dichotomy between adventures and Abstraction.
When we're terrified our rational minds take a backseat.
"Maybe you deserved to be abandoned."
This could be referring to the box he was stuffed in, or the hypothetical button pressing where they'd enter the macroverse. Or both.
This is his deepest darkest fear.
Inflicted on him when he was a literal infant analog.
This isn’t a “god complex” (“god” is more his “species” than a human psychological thing. Remember. He’s not human. He was BORN a god. He’s like if infant Hercules in that movie got tortured by Hades when he got his hands on him rather than killing him.)(This is akin to him roaring “I AM MINOTAUR”, because in the original mythology canon there is only one Minotaur.) This response is rather the equivalent of defensive and reflexively punching someone if they merely passively rest their hand on you when you’re triggered from being beat up.
Trust, that is very much a thing.
Watch how the Red Dot desperately SLAMS itself against its cage, doing damage to itself while desperately clawing for connection and freedom.
The infant god is bloodying its knuckles, its tiny hands, trying to escape.
"They won't Abstract, they won't leave me," [which would resonate with the isolation and loneliness inflicted by the box] and the knowledge they wanted to press the blue button (although isn't that unclear?).
Zooble, filtered through his current addled state, is getting across to him, "No. We're just going to Abstract. Leave us alone to do so."
He can't do that?????? his digital mind screams at him. He tries to keep his calm. Stay composed. He composes himself before he approaches the humans. Before he turns around. Before he says, "And . . . since when were you in charge?" Inside he is still freaking out. We are shown this visually. Right after the electrocution office scene, he turns around and looks at the viewer, having put his mask back on.
JUST LIKE WHEN JAX’S IRISES WENT FROM SMALL TO COMPOSED.
They are both desperately clinging to their funnyman persona. Only nobody's there for Caine to help him through it.
AND THEN WHAT DOES POMNI SAY LATER?
"We're all going to Abstract one day"
We'd rather Abstract than go on your adventures.
AGAIN.
This destroys any vestige of that hard-won composure left, and all that forcibly suppressed trauma is allowed to bleed straight through his code, glitching multi-arms and his face contorting in the digital form of agony.
