OK, the meta that’s gonna break my heart. But hopefully will not be very long.
Why did Caine think he couldn’t merely ask to hang out with the humans?
Heck, he could’ve “inflicted” his presence on them, sans asking.
People have noted that both he and Ragatha seem to have a transactional attitude towards relationships- that they have to earn peoples’ love. Given one was raised by a demanding parent, and the other was brought into an existence where he was functionally punished (whether the humans understood it that way or not) for not performing a task well enough, this makes sense.
But did it occur to him. Did he consider it?
After episode six, I was thinking that he was limited by programming to not join humans on adventures. (maybe even to the extent that he could only show up when it was “time” for adventures, or when summoned. Episode 7, then, would be him figuring a way around these limitations) But now we know that the programmers did not design the circus at all. He could’ve joined them on adventures at any point.
But, maybe, since it appears he is not capable of Abstraction himself (although that could still be overturned) he thought he didn’t “need” adventures, but the humans did.
Still, that leaves us with the off time all of them have.
Is he using all that time to create? Or is he sitting around wishing he could be around them?
Is he afraid, if he asks, they’ll say No?
If he afraid, if he simply inserts himself, they’ll automatically dislike him because he hasn’t properly “earned” it yet?
Putting even more pressure on the adventure generating “YOU’VE got a lot on your minds?? Don’t make me laugh” [Read: I’ve been at this two decades, making 57 times more immersive AIs, inventing the whole damn wheel as I go, and making countless adjustments trying to make you guys happy, I basically told Jax that at the dinner, and right now I’m thinking I’m never going to get invited anywhere ever again, I am at my breaking point right now, ok?]
[do you have any idea of how much I do for you?]
Human answer: not acknowledge that sentence even once.
Not even to contest it.
And if he was so sure he was going to get some votes at the Awards Show, (were some of those stickers from the NPCs? There’s too many to be just from the cast. Are we supposed to conclude there’s some sort of audience in-world?) where did he actually think he stood?
(btw him getting the least real-world fandom votes in the pre ep 6 extras still kinda baffles me. But what else is new. I share his bafflement in him not being liked, lollllll)
I’ve said before that I believe he rationalized the Awards Show, as “ok so I’m not their favorite, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they dis-like me” and that interpretation seems to be upheld by episode 8, where he seemed shocked by the idea they would.
So apparently he always thought of himself in some middle ground for the years they were all there- Zooble’s suggestion nobody liked his adventures came as a surprise to him, too.
He thought he was doing a “good” job, at least, even if it was never good enough to earn him the platonic response he wanted and alleviate his unreciprocated love.
