Btw what exactly is your idea when you say that Kinger is going to die? Because even if he abstracts, yeah sure they can't put him in the cellar, but the circus is much darker without the bright colors so he would most likely act a lot more docile and the others could probably keep him around even in his abstraced state? So do you think it's going to be something like he falls into the void or gets actually delete from the code like Caine?
I don't know EXACTLY how he'll die or even if he'll ACTUALLY die-die, but I do think he is Absolutely Fucking Doomed. Like, that scene at the start of Episode 8 where everyone's talking about how they're gonna stick together and be there for each other, wanna know who doesn't say a WORD that whole scene? Kinger. He's FUCKED.
And I've got FOUR hypotheses on how he is Absolutely Fucked.
He's gonna abstract (which, yes they'd likely keep his abstracted form around! but abstraction is a suicide metaphor so like it is death) (this is least likely since abstraction is gonna be jax's demon to fight not kinger's)
He falls into the void (or jax pushes him into the void) and they can't get him back
Ok this one requires explanation. I think Dims has talked about this a bit but I don't feel like checking rn lol so I'm gonna also explain it. Kinda sleepy so it might not be the most coherent
So like, ik a lot of people think based on THIS bit that Caine is the reason Kinger's mind broke
But here's the thing, when it cuts to the wide shot, Caine wasn't looking at him at all.
Caine wasn't referring to him being the one to break Kinger's mind, he was talking about something else- given how Kinger then brought up Scratch's abstraction, Caine probably did something to Scratch, not Kinger.
But like, hey, maybe he's looking away because of guilt. Fair point! However: in Episode 8, we see after Queenie died, Kinger wandering the circus alone. And then when Ragatha shows up, he's kinda... dazed and out of it, not remembering who he is until Caine shows up.
Question: where in that would Caine have done something to mess with his brain? It can't have been after that, because surely Ragatha would've mentioned something about that. It can't have been before Queenie's abstraction. And it can't have been in the in between period because we see what Kinger was doing after Queenie's death, and it'd be kind of an asspull if the show went went "actually something happened there while you weren't looking and we didn't show it." Like- eeeehhhh that doesn't really sound right.
So Caine wasn't the one who fucked up Kinger's brain. Then what the fuck happened? Dims is the one who proposed this idea to me so full credit to him for figuring this out first lol
Look at how Kinger talks about it in Episode 3. "I'm normally not too good with memories. But being surrounded by darkness always brings me back to a certain time." Then he talks about Queenie's abstraction and his goodbye to her, and says he's always taken back to that moment when he's engulfed in darkness. It's something that he can hold onto, a memory he can control. Something that grounds him back to reality.
That... doesn't sound like it's a supernatural force to me. That sounds like something more mental.
Walk with me for a bit. Abstraction is a metaphor for suicide, right? Like, based on how abstraction from the inside is a peaceful slide into oblivion, and based on how Jax basically got put on suicide watch, and based on how Ragatha talks about it in Episode 1, it's not insanity, it's suicide, and that becomes clearer and clearer each episode.
Dims proposed to me that in a similar vein to that, Kinger's memory problems, his being usually a bit disconnected from everything, him being able to ground himself after a while of being in the dark... it's more akin to dissociation.
Because what do we see after Queenie's abstraction? Kinger is told to seriously please don't abstract too, and then we see him wandering the extremely bright circus and staring into space for who knows how long as everything just blurs and fades together, until eventually Ragatha shows up.
No one broke Kinger's brain. He was just so traumatized and lonely, so filled with grief and self-loathing, from losing Queenie, losing everybody, that he retreated inside his own head and completely disconnected from everything. It's why he has trouble with memory. It's why he's usually so zoned out and stops paying attention so easily. Because he is constantly dissociating.
BACK ON TOPIC! The topic being: Kinger Is So Doomed. So. Kinger's complete dissociation happened after Queenie's abstraction- something that he is implied to be/feel responsible for (see: ep 6). And I wanna point out how after talking about Queenie's abstraction, he says this line.
The fact that he says the worst thing you can do is make someone feel unwanted/unloved after talking about Queenie's metaphorical suicide implies that something fucking happened. He did or said something that made her feel unwanted/unloved, and it drove her to abstraction. (hey what's this parallel to jax doing here. jax stop being a foil to literally everyone in this damn circus)
On some level, Kinger felt responsible for Queenie's death, even if he didn't mean to cause it. And after she was gone, he completely dissociated from everything.
And what just happened at the end of Episode 8?
He accidentally killed his fucking son.
I don't think he absolutely will fall back into dissociation to cope with once again accidentally causing the death of someone he cares deeply about. But I think he might. And if he does- before, he dissociated in the blinding light of the circus. Without Caine, the circus has gone dark.
If Kinger completely dissociates now, if he retreats into his own mind in darkness... he's not coming back.
Option 4 for how Kinger Is Absolutely Fucked is "he sacrifices himself for the others" for which my explanation for why is A) guilt, and B) he would
