Utterly FASCINATED by the fact that, contrary to what just about everyone believed…

THIS ONE (or what we have dubbed as Abel) turned out to be the aggressive one of the two. Not only aggressive, but ironically seemingly over-protective of Caine, despite him being the younger’s killer.

The implications just. Where do I even begin to even know what kind of questions to ask?

WHY??? No seriously big one; why on earth would ABEL, the youngest and slain, be the protective one in this clearly symbiotic dynamic?

How did that even happen? What on earth was the domino effect that even lead to Abel being the aggressor in this dynamic?

Is it even Abel being aggressive or was it a sign that their AIs together were incompatible and said incompatibility was the result of said aggression?

What does this say about Abel psychologically, if we are going off the impression that Abel is as sentient as Caine is despite personality-wise not being in the forefront?

I never really interacted with the fandom until recently, I usually enjoyed the fan content more than the show and I pretty much only cared about Caine, but I’m not really seeing people talk about Caine’s ending (and the issues with it) so I wanted to put this out here. (I made a post like this previously but this is a MUCH more refined version now that ep 9 is actually out.)

Originally I did watch the leak on TikTok, and I was now able to re-review with people posting the whole thing in English, and generally I did not like it.

First of all, what was the actual reason for Caine to be deleted if they were just gonna walk it back? Was it so Jax would give up? Or was it for shock value?

I guess it's so Caine could be in this isolated position to think, (and to go use the internet, maybe that’s the bigger reason.) It’s not like he lost everything, so I’m assuming this just snapped him to a realization of what he’s been doing, but I feel it would've been more interesting if he were put in a temporary shutdown state or had his powers disabled. With that, the cast would have to grapple with being mind files while also deciding what to do with Caine. Maybe I’m wrong, that just sounds more appealing to me (and less contrived, if Caine was never actually meant to stay dead.)

Along with that, the characters would have to try to come to an understanding while on the same level. It would force Caine into the same limitations as the cast, while making it fair and neutral ground for everyone to actually have a conversation, instead of everyone (but mostly Caine) figuring things out separately (or during a montage.)

(You know I’m starting to think they really did compromise Caine’s character in order for Jax to spiral. I can’t confirm that’s the case, but I could see it.)

With the way episode 8 was handled, I didn't expect Caine to come back at all, and when he did come back, it wasn’t some big surprise plot twist to me, more like another strange contrivance. His exclamations of "I didn't ask to be created! I just wanted to fulfill my purpose!" (Along with other details) Made me think they were enforcing the idea that Caine is broken, unhappy, and trapped. And, a tragic accident though it may be, that it’s more merciful for him to stay deleted.

I know everyone wants a happy ending, (especially for Caine) but that’s where I interpreted they were going.

So back to his actual comeback, getting deleted puts him in the void (without Bubble? Unless Bubble was the blue ai? I don’t even know anymore.) and from what I saw I don’t think they explain it? It’s just one of those “suspend your disbelief, this is how our lore works!” Kinda things. Which can be totally fine to have in a story, but when you’re finding all these other issues alongside it, it makes it hard not to point it out.

Caine thinks about what he's done and how it was wrong (even though he seemed to be pretty ignorant of it every other time he did something wrong?)

And then there’s the blue ai scene, I've seen a few people explain it in a way that makes sense, but when you’re JUST watching it I don’t think they get much meaning across.

Like was all that anger really Caine or not? Was he some self-conflicting fusion the whole time? Because if it’s really not his flaws then that makes his “development” feel a little empty (and convenient.)

When Caine gets back to the circus, we see some defensiveness from the cast, but Zooble ultimately says that it's also good to have Caine back, which seems a little quick. I know he told them he'd give them control of the Circus, but being happy to see him at all feels a little insane to me, considering the last thing he was doing was torturing them all with their insecurities and fears. This whole scene just happens REALLY fast.

Obviously it's cute seeing Caine do little activities and getting along with everyone, I think everyone wanted to see something nice like that, but it still feels incredibly unearned to me. It's like he didn't get a conclusion to his character arc; he just realized his mistakes all on his own, and reversed his own deletion all on his own.

Caine also feels so strange to me in that end bit, I think it's because of how easily everything went down and how he came back all calm and somber, but especially because he seems to have inexplicably gained the ability to read a room!

It feels like “don’t worry he’s 100% sane and normal now. He understands every part of what he did wrong and he now knows how to behave around humans.” If he has problems left over, they don’t hint at them.

It's as if the show doesn't want him to mess up the tone or make things awkward, even though that's how he's always been, we see him do that at least twice (his attitude around Queenie and Kaufmo’s abstractions!!) it just comes off super OOC for him to just understand act completely normal.

There is an extent that you can do that, but I think they could’ve found a little balance instead of swinging it entirely the other way.

I don’t think anybody actually reached out to Caine/tried to understand him in the end? which seems to go against a lot of the series' messaging. I think you could say that their criticism of him in episode 8 is something like that? Because sometimes what people do need is for someone to call them out and make them aware of what they're doing wrong. However, the cast seems to simultaneously treat Caine like he's just a machine (or an obstacle), and to hold him to a human standard of reasoning and morality. That’s really my biggest thing, how they seem to view him as pretty much a robot and expect him to understand right from wrong or human emotions, and that’s never actually touched upon on the cast’s side.

Caine doesn't understand humans, while the cast doesn't understand him. They don't seem to know or understand that he wasn't actually ill-intentioned in ep 7, they pretty much didn’t know anything about his mindset or emotions (and conveniently, the only person to be exposed to his true intentions/feelings, is the one who wouldn’t care or empathize at all.) And so, in ep 8, they look for a way to “fix” or “control” him.

One of my problems with episode 9 is that these major problems happened due to a lack of understanding from both parties, and instead of either party reaching out to the other, Caine with figures it out on his own with the help of the internet. You can argue that him looking them up is him reaching out to them, and I see that a little, but it’s just even more “dealing with things separately instead of communicating.” And even if Caine reached out to them, we don’t really see them reciprocating.

And like I already said, there's no meaningful conversation when Caine comes back either. It feels very convenient and boring. Do they ever discuss what happened now that it’s resolved? We don't get to find out, because watching a half hour of Jax being mean was more important.

l've seen a lot of fan works that I consider a lot better at handling his characterization, and the kinds of struggles the cast would be going through with all this. Such as: to what extent does Caine actually relate to humanity? Is he really sorry? How can an ai know right from wrong? Does this ai actually have human emotions? How do we know we're safe from harm again? Etc.

There’s so much to explore and Caine feels very fumbled to me.

I saw someone say TADC should’ve been about the double empathy problem and I think that’s an amazing idea.

Anyway lots of other people have already picked apart the use of the rest of the cast in ep 9 so I won’t go over that. I was fine with Jax and I thought he was funny, but after this I just don’t really like him.

A few questions: how does the circus stay running if this is an abandoned building? I know they got their "happy ending," but is it really fine that anyone else could just wander into the circus to have their brain-map trapped too? We're not gonna try to make it so no one else can ever be trapped or anything? If Caine has control of their mind-things and lets the program he made automatically create them an avatar and such, could he just not upload a new person who puts the headset on? Would he do that? (The of Caine having to choose whether to actually allow another person to be trapped here would be an interesting one honestly)