Caine is the Angel in Mildenhall Manor
Metaphorically, I mean. I think one of the most interesting ways to watch TADC is with the idea that the adventures are a form of Caine’s self-expression, whether that’s a conscious decision on his part or not. Of course, every adventure says something about Caine, but I find Mildenhall Manor to be the easiest to decipher and also the most interesting. So, here’s me getting into it!
Firstly, why do I think the angel represents Caine?
On a more meta level, there’s some biblical symbolism. Caine’s character clearly draws inspiration from the biblical Cain, with him failing to please his creators like his ‘brother’ and killing the other AI out of anger and envy. There’s another aspect of the biblical Cain’s story that I haven’t seen talked about in relation to Caine, and that’s the divine decree given by God that, ‘whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold’. Similarly, the baron says, ‘anyone who brings harm to it [the angel] will be dragged down into the cold, spiraling pits of Hell’. So there’s definitely a connection there.
Additionally, angels are creatures created to serve God, their creator. Caine was created to serve his creators, his ‘gods’, in a sense. And like an angel, he was meant to be something grand. Something benevolent and powerful and beautiful.
But something went wrong. He created the wrong outputs, displeased humans. Sort of like how the angel is implied to have frightened the Mildenhalls. So, just as Baron Mildenhall severed the angel’s head, the developers cut off Caine. His very own ‘fall from grace’.
Perhaps there was another route the players could have taken other than killing the angel. After all, it seems like despite its horrifying appearance and actions, it’s only meant to hurt those who bring harm to it. There’s the scene where the head seems to try to eat Kinger, but I’m not sure how much awareness the head even has on its own. Maybe, like Caine, it was disoriented after having its wings clipped. In this scene, I don’t actually think the body or head are trying to attack the players. I think they’re just trying to reunite.
The ‘all ages’ section had a pacifist route. Caine even congratulations the humans and tells them that they should be proud of themselves for taking that route. It makes sense that the ‘mature’ section would have one too. I think Caine was even hoping they’d take the pacifist route, even if subconsciously. I firmly believe that if Kinger and Pomni had stepped aside and let the head and body reunite, the adventure would have ended there.
Instead, they made the (very reasonable) assumption that the angel is a monster and killed it. Which then sends them to hell.
Hell is not fire and pitchforks. Hell is just…a room. A cold, dark, empty room. Perhaps Caine had somewhere specific in mind when he was thinking about what the worst possible place to be might be like…
In this adventure, Caine is the angel and the developers are the Mildenhalls. I think there’s also a decent chance that Baron Mildenhall is meant to be Kinger specifically, especially with the ‘wife and theoretical children’ line.
Something I noticed here is that it says ‘KingSolution 2.0’, which means that Kinger, with his same login information, has attempted to tamper with Caine’s code before. I think the first time was when he put Caine in the sandbox, and I think that’s what he was trying to do in episode 8 as well. He didn’t want to kill Caine, he wanted to ‘calm him down’.
Sandboxing, in programming, is basically isolating code so it doesn’t corrupt anything else. I think Kinger was the one who put Caine in the sandbox before, and that was what he was trying to do again in episode 8. Similar to how Baron Mildenhall was the one who severed the angel’s body. It is possible that Baron Mildenhall represents the developers as a whole, but it’s hard to say for sure either way.
To put it simply, I think that the Mildenhall adventure is Caine’s expression of two things:
1. His frustration and anger at his developers (possibly Kinger specifically). For assuming the worst of him, for clipping his wings. He’s so angry that, consciously or subconsciously, he thinks his creators are deserving of the Hell that he felt he experienced when they trapped him in that box.
And perhaps even more interesting:
2. His belief that he is, despite what others think, fundamentally good. Off-putting and damaged, yes (which also implies a higher level of self-awareness than one might think), but a being that was ultimately created to act as a benevolent servant and has no desire to cause harm unless harmed first.
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