Iztarshi

Kinger first because I might as well go in order of who has been in the circus longest. When Kinger is in the light he is not capable of minding the lack of power - his otherwise logical mind is switched off and without memory he cannot predict anything anyway, with or without Caine's randomness. It makes it much easier for him to go with the flow and be less stressed but also makes it even more impossible for him to make choices.

In the dark, Kinger has to deal with the helplessness of the situation more, but he also isn't as powerless as the other characters. He knows how to conjure, so he's not forced to rely on Caine for everything, and there's one other very important thing. He's still Caine's programmer. Altering Caine's code would always be a last desperate measure, dangerous to Kinger because it would anger Caine and dangerous to Caine in the same way as brain surgery, but it's always an option he's had.

I think both those things, the forgetfulness and the fact that he has a last resort, have helped him survive as long as he has.

Ragatha grew up in a place where she was powerless and where power was held by someone volatile. Under Caine's control she's fallen back into the same patterns. She placates him, seldom complains about him even behind his back, and puts the best face on what he does - talking about the adventures as fun things to distract them and keep them from abstracting. Even in the softball adventure where Caine is being deliberately mean (the giant centipede in the audience for a start) she keeps her complaints under her breath.

Ragatha tends to focus on others and on helping them to survive. She and Kinger have the best understanding that this is where they can still make a difference. Even though Ragatha struggles with connecting to people she still tries.

Jax is also from an abusive household but she reacts to it far more similarly to Caine reacts to his own trauma. Rather than ceding control but holding onto herself as much as possible, like Ragatha, Jax wants to be the one in control. As such she approaches the circus like a puzzle (the flipside to Caine treating the humans like a puzzle) and works out its rules much more thoroughly than anyone else except maybe Kinger. Some things she's wrong about (archetype theory - there's a reason she only sees Gangle being sad and Zooble being grumpy), some things she's right about (the circus does work on the rules of fiction far more than the rules of reality). She also treats Caine as a piece of infrastructure, or like he's a more normal AI, treating "adventure" as a kind of keyword to get him to do things. To prove her power she uses this against the rest of the cast, calling on Caine to throw Pomni into an adventure before she's got her bearings or giving away Zooble's hiding places.

As such she's probably the most devastated to realise Caine is a person and even a fairly manipulative one within the limits of what he understands well enough to manipulate. It means she never had the power in this situation at all and it's all been an illusion caused by Caine's willingness to humour her.

Gangle didn't have much power in the outside world. So in the circus she remains largely resigned to it and doesn't do much but keep her head down. Although she does have a coping mechanism that still works in the circus - she's a storyteller and artist, so there's always something she has control over in her own imagination, no matter what is happening around her.

The exception is Spudsy's and the plastic mask. In some ways the mask has resonance with both Jax and Caine, also both chasing power and also both masking with a smile, although it's still Gangle's thing. But under its influence Gangle takes a page out of Jax's book and even takes it further. Gangle uses Caine to place all the others under her control, since they'll now be punished for disobedience. (Caine seems to consider this equivalent to asking for a new game mechanic rather than having any awareness of the dynamics.)

Gangle's brief fling with having all the power is far more stressful than enjoyable for her, though, and she never does anything equivalent again.

I love Zooble's reaction to powerlessness and at the same time it's probably the reason that Caine's spiralling even before Pomni arrives. Zooble is not about to placate the guy telling them what to do. Zooble treats Caine the same way they treat Jax. They won't coddle bad behaviour or let people lie to themselves about the consequences - Jax gets told that Gangle doesn't like teaming up with him, Caine gets told no one likes his adventures. Zooble actually does give completely actionable advice, advice which even addresses that the main problem is the lack of control the humans have, pushing Caine towards the suggestion box and outright saying he should leave adventures open and let people choose where they want to go (which is not only workable but what he eventually does). Unfortunately their bluntness is also taking a sledgehammer to all his delicate coping mechanisms.

Zooble does use Caine against Jax, not as a regular thing, but specifically when Caine gives them the voting mechanism. It's Zooble who thinks to use it for things other than when to end the adventure and to turn the power of having the others on their side against Jax, which is an interesting dynamic in that it's understandable but also further isolates Jax who is already dangerously isolated by making it clear the entire group is tired of her. (Once again Caine seems wholly unaware of the group tensions or how he's participating in them.)

Pomni never really accepts powerlessness, mostly because she's so new she hasn't had to (although she is also very determined). At first she's focused on an exit, then on demanding answers from Caine (because if she's stuck there she's not going to tolerate things just continuing), then when Caine snaps as soon as they try to question him she's trying to bring Kinger around and find a way to deal with Caine, then when the circus falls she's the first to join Kinger and start trying to conjure it back together.

Pomni's too nervous a person to snap at Caine the way Zooble does (except under the most dire of circumstances) but even before things get bad she's very vocal about what she does and doesn't want in adventures. I think she is actually taking a cue from Zooble, because she can see that Zooble doesn't get punished and has been allowed to simply refuse to go on adventures, so being new she's testing the limits of what power she might be allowed. Even just the power to say "no".

Pomni also doesn't try to exert power over, or use Caine to exert power over, anyone else. The most she ever does there is join in the voting for Jax to be vegan (and she doesn't vote for the maid dress).