What do I put here?

From leftmost to rightmost:

SU BEI <333 A boy given knowledge they're a disposable background character in a potentially failing, bad-ending manga vows to survive by using audience expectations to manipulate the world. (MGTS = Manga Guide to Survive -> A Guide for Background Characters to Survive in a Manga). He's clever, independent, but gleefully avoids the hassle the manga's protagonist go through, but ends up ropes in anyway. i love him so much.

SETH THORN <33333 A game developer with a fatal disease is transported into a world with terrifying gates/dungeons, and given a system that promises a cure if he obeys. He has the soul of a sadistic jester, got proposed to by a conductor if you squint, and is trying very hard not to cackle at people's suffering. Hobbies including gaslighting his coworkers and only tolerating the existence of his childhood friend. (HGAS = Horror Games Aren't Scary -> Horror Game Developer: My Games Aren't That Scary). my fav freak slowly transforming into a powerful, gleeful monster.

SEO GIO <333 A painter who ends up inside a magical portrait as the world changed, just trying to vibe leisurely and make friends. Unbeknownst to him, though, he has the distinct demeanor of a hopefully well meaning eldritch being going "pspsppsps" towards humanity, while insisting he is a regular guy. No one believes him. (TDP = The Dungeon Painter -> The Artist Who Paints the Dungeon.) imagine gio's in a slice life anime and everyone else is a slowburn horror story. once wrote a letter to his fav employee and it teleported into that guy's house and was utterly unknowable in any language.

THE ASCETIC <3333 A gamer pushed into the body of a npc from a game he just completed, forced to play a convincing, kindly, but otherworldly cult leader. He grows his fanbase, tries to untangle himself from enemies, and is convincingly a somewhat eldritch/godly being in a human skin-suit trying to help others. He thinks everyone is are obsessive weirdos, who should stop believing shit he says. Try killing him and witness the EYES start appearing from his blood! You are Known. You are Seen. You Are seen. You Are Seen. (WCL = Wise Cult Leader -> The Life of a Wise Cult Leader)

THEO LISTOEL <333 Bound into a body of a sickly noble's son, Theo must progress the game he's been entrapped in, impacting the lives of the characters he's known so well. He's given the one ability of Writer, able to write reality with the low, low cost of concerning everyone he knows by bleeding profusely from his eyes and mouth, collapsing, and somehow being vaguely son shaped to a demon king. Peak father-son + friendship dynamics to me. (WNPC = Weakest NPC, Surviving as the Academy's Weakest NPC)

I'd love to use images to prove I'm getting the dialogue straight from the game on every single line, but unfortunately Tumblr has an image limit of 30 per post! So. After a point, text only it is.

Starting from the past!

First, and the most recent (chronologically) yet objective of those takes on her, is Binah. Whose entire deal is to see things without getting caught up enough that you don't see the bigger picture, funnily enough!

Roland: Hang on, what? You mean the Carmen who recruited people for her quest to cure humanity?

Binah: She strove to create a world without conflict. To elaborate, her idea of utopia was one in which people did not harm each other, and could mutually understand. She dreamed of a world where people could dream. Alas, she could never reach that ideal herself.

Now, this is interesting, because as said, Binah is someone who was never part of the team, who never followed Carmen, and the person she is interested in watching isn't Carmen - it's Ayin. He, after all, was the one who by the last loop could face his fear of her and confront her head on in her meltdown.

But she was also the one who was interacting with her the most over the past ten thousand years, unable to go mad from her dealings with the Bucket and Well. So there's this:

So. Yeah. Binah's had Carmen to talk with over that length of time.

We can see from this that Carmen's original goal was, in fact, to create a utopia where no one hurt each other and people could have their own dreams, rather than just the ones that the City gave to them (the need to survive).

However, that's not all we know about her.

Let's look at memories from those who actually interacted with her!

The problem here is that for the most part... that's reduced to one person: Ayin. And he's hardly reliable here! But... there are a few places where we can see others' perspectives, one way or another, and just because he's an unreliable narrator doesn't cause his opinions and memories from being useless for our needs here.

That's for the most part. We also have Angela and the Patron Librarians in Ruina to think of.

We know that she was someone who was warm and full of life, courtesy of Ayin, Angela, and Netzach:

Netzach: All I could think about was how brilliant and alive a person could be. She went on about how she'll change this world and its people. Whenever I saw Carmen brimming with joy and pride for her cause, I felt alive too.

We know that Carmen had fond memories of and warmth for Ayin:

Angela: Why did you have to model me after a person with fond memories of you?

And that she was excited to see people choose to work with her for her cause, and Michelle "wasn't the manipulative sort of person" who would lie about liking her. This shows that she's easily and honestly liked. I'm sure that children of the City, who are taught to be careful and wary, wouldn't honestly like someone they thought was bad for them.

A(yin) [flashback]: Just ike everyone else, Michelle liked Carmen. That was not trickery or a show. She wasn't the manipulative sort of person who'd keep up such a facade, either.

She could understand that she had certain privileges, that others did not, but still wanted to help them:

Carmen: You know, I don't have any true contact with the lives of the people from the Backstreets, nor the pain they go through. From that I've always felt so ashamed of everything, even to be graced by a small ray of sunshine.

Gebura: But Carmen told me that she wouldn't give up on anyone, even people like us.

She was a workaholic who looked out for others:

A(yin): Th only problem was that Carmen was too wrapped up in taking care of others. She never had a moment to take good care of herself.

Carmen was the one who encouraged them to save Lisa and Enoch, from the Outskirts, and ensured that they'd be looked after:

Lisa: Besides, Carmen told us that we didn't have to worry about anything here, too.

A(yin): Carmen personally asked her to bring the children here.

It was the trust between Carmen and the team that caused Daniel to choose Carmen's group over literally any other Wing:

Chesed: Manager, do you know why I chose to join your small company, instead of any other grander Wings? [...] It was because I liked how everyone here trusted Carmen.

All of which seems positive, right?

Except... the seeds (ha) of her becoming the sort of person who would shift "bring out the best potential in people" to "aren't you through with being nice? don't you want to be selfish and distort?" were there from the beginning.

In the very scene where Ayin is saying that Michelle isn't the manipulative sort of person to pretend she likes someone, he also recounts that she had done this:

A(yin): If your beloved parents, or your precious friends try to coax you, are you confident that you'll be able to refuse them?

A(yin, narrator: She wasn't able to say anything to my browbeating. Carmen broke the silence instead.

Carmen: Don't be too harsh on her. She's amazing to be here at such a young age!

Maybe on its own, this would be a harmless action, but bear in mind: they are currently in or heading to a lab that is in the Outskirts for the sake of evading the eye of the Head. Ayin is watching out for Michelle by warning her of the very real danger she is putting herself into, if she isn't strong enough.

And Carmen brushes over his concerns, overrules him, and ignores the potential danger. If this were a safe sort of research lab, that'd be fine, and her talking over him to defend a young colleague would possibly bolster Michelle's confidence, and certainly encourage her to like Carmen. However, it is not safe, and this does not help either Michelle, or the rest of the researchers.

One could argue that this is a simple mistake, however it happens over and over again in the course of the flashbacks.

Over and over, she is able to be dismissive of others, not looking past what she sees in the moment, yet able to plan ahead, which is said to X right all the way back in Day 9:

Angela:  [Alright, the letter ‘C’. Not a bad choice.] Persons who select C believe that the process is more important than the outcome. Therefore, they are good at planning ahead and enjoy change. They will be able to gain insight and attain inner growth without being confined by the rules.

This also calls forward to how Carmen finds her own sacrifice meaningless as soon as she's past the point of no return, and can't look far enough ahead to see the "outcome" that Angela refers to here.

"Okay, but how is she dismissive of others? We've only seen her support Michelle so far!" Right then.

Kali: By the way, who's the guy glaring at me?

Carmen: Oh, that's A(yin). He just always has a serious look on his face.

Effectively, she dismisses Kali's concerns about Ayin not trusting her, but also makes a joke out of Ayin's own RBF (which most likely has its origin in a lethal mix of autism and depression, based on my own read of him).

Even if all Carmen intended was to break the ice, this is not conducive to communication. No one's concerns are alleviated. Kali may now potentially dismiss Ayin's expression as irrelevant.

Daniel's recruitment comes with a double-whammy.

A(yin), flashback: "He's a bit pompous, so don't believe everything he says," she said to me.

Which is bad enough, encouraging your junior who has been with you this long to dismiss the words of someone who is choosing to work with you. These two people will be working together, and there is a certain irony in how Daniel chose to join Carmen's team because they all trusted her...

...but these last two especially beg the question - did they all trust each other?

And here's the other side of the Whammy, which also comes in two parts:

A(yin): I asked how she was able to recruit such an elite. Carmen answered nonchalantly, as if I had asked about something trivial. "Don't you know that by now?"

And as to what "that" might be there's the fact that she says she's "good at blowing people's minds" and then... there's this, from when Daniel had just arrived, asking how she knew he was coming:

Carmen: I told you. No matter how great you may be, you will always be in the palm of my hand.

...excuse me, what was that?

Because first off, we have a certain level of pride and arrogance, in how she "nonchalantly" answers about how she could recruit someone from the elite. To her, this is something she can just do with ease. She sees no great feat where others would have to struggle. Even putting aside the fact that as seen in Ruina, her method of "recruitment" was in fact (at first, at least) to kidnap him by accident.

But then there's this phrase: No matter how great you may be, you will always be in the palm of my hand. This gave me an immediate sense of discomfort when I first saw this scene. Not to mention, it's used in far less benign ways later on; Angela to Chesed (who she has been forcing to do unsavoury things, resulting in agents dying) and notably several major enemies in Limbus Company.

The good guys do not use phrases such as these which inhibit the freedom and agency of a person.

One has to wonder how Carmen could balance "I want people to not hurt each other and to dream their own dreams" with the way of thinking that would encourage such a phrase to become so very associated with her.

Moving on, and in spite of being safe from the Outskirts, Lisa and Enoch weren't actually happy, or safe themselves.

Enoch: Well... what if we said Carmen was our new mom, then?

Lisa: No... This isn't the same at all... Let me go home, please...

More importantly... when Enoch asks "Please allow me to participate in the experiment"-

A(yin) [flashback]: Carmen spent many nights thinking about his earnest request. Then, finally, we...

>Approved his participation.

Adults have a duty of care to children to NOT DO THIS.

Concerningly enough, there are implications that she may have known this would happen - she says in no uncertain terms to Ayin that:

Carmen: I have something I should confess. I actually have a much weaker heart than everyone thinks. I always say stuff like “count on me” and “just follow me” in front of everyone… But I’m never sure about the things I do. If anyone were harmed or put in trouble because of what I do… I would definitely be shaken and end up hating myself. I know that. That’s why I need to ask you for a favor. No matter what I may become, please finish what I started. We humans have weak hearts. One crack and it will easily crumble. I am no exception to this, but you… You’ll endure through it. There is only one way out, and it’ll never change. You know what I’m trying to say, right?

Basically? She more than implies that she knows perfectly well that if she caused someone to be hurt because of the path she takes to getting what she wants (her ideal world), she'll "crumble." That such an event would lead to her death.

She approved Enoch going into the experiment knowing this about herself.

She also knew that she couldn't face her fears, so she placed all of the weight of that onto one person: Ayin. When realistically, no one human should have been given that kind of weight to carry all on their own. Based on our knowledge of what happens next, we know that Ayin, too, is no exception to the "humans have weak hearts" rule. Sure, he made sure the Seed of Light project was seen through to completion... but that was after ten thousand years and multpile suicides of his own.

Then, we reach how she is after Enoch dies, once she's in her own unstable state:

Abram: I saw her eyes right after opening that door. Those eyes, soaked with red, as she had to endure cruel reality. She walked into your lab and started illustrating her hypothesis. Carefully, yet decidedly. You wanted to tell her it was preposterous, but like always, she had you persuaded. You had no choice but to admit it was the only way. What made me, us, so upset...

Abram: Was how much it hurt to listen to her put it so calmly, as if it were none of our business. And how much we loathed ourselves for just having to tolerate it.

So, in essence, she had a very forceful personality, and she steamrollered all over Ayin's objections to her hypothesis, which can be theorised was the origin of the Seed of Light Scenario, and the very Script itself, as the devs have confirmed that she had a hand in it, to the point where she at least detailed out what the hiring practices should be (this is in one of the interviews).

She is very good at convincing people to think what she thinks is best, and to do what she wants them to do. Remember that phrase of hers? "You are always in the palm of my hand." Here, we see a direct example of that as Ayin was trying to fight back, but she put down his objections.

Possibly most important is that last line there - remember that this is implied to be almost certainly her discussing things that Ayin should do to continue her work after she is gone. We do not know the details, but if we look at even the bare minimum... he has to do some horrendous things, even without putting his friends/former coworkers in metal boxes. And here is Carmen, talking about the future, with Ayin knowing that it is in fact going to be him who has to do all of this. But does he get a say in this?

No. He does not. He simply "tolerates" her putting it "calmly, as if it were none of [his] business."

All in all, the overall picture so far of Carmen is of someone who... has grand dreams, high ideals, and who may not see the end as justifying the means, but appears to believe that cruelty has to be "endured" regardless by someone, even if that isn't her. All of which makes her, quite simply, a very flawed human being. She isn't evil, but she certainly isn't any kind of saint.

What came next?

Well, we know that Carmen became the Bucket, dipping into the Well of the human subconscious, because of Binah. We know that she was still alive enough to be conscious as said Bucket.

We know through Hokma that agents employed by Lobotomy Corporation's Headquarters had records made, and that any one of them could be brought back at Hokma's will.

We... also know that a fair number of Abnormalities have traits in common with her.

Of the most blatant, there's Bloodbath (the method of her death), and WhiteNight.

Bloodbath drags agents into it, and you get more Positive Enkephalin boxes for each agent in the bath (i.e, sacrificed to it). However, you don't get unique boxes, meaning that there are significant drawbacks (you lose agents, and you don't get gear).

This can effectively be another way of referring back to how Carmen's death only served to drag others down into depression and despair with her, and although they gained some things, there were significant drawbacks in that people died, and it wasn't even efficient.

WhiteNight starts off as the abnormality "Plague Doctor." Now, Plague Doctor is connected to Carmen in two ways - firstly, both she and the historical Plague Doctors wanted to cure an illness that plagued humanity, but there's also the fact that when fighting the others after the end, the Plague Doctor is the EGO that Angela, who was built based off of Carmen and spends most of the game emulating her, wears. Plague Doctors in history are also infamous for only having ineffective cures.

The supposedly Zayin Plague Doctor, after it has blessed twelve of the agents, however... will transform into WhiteNight, and immediately transform them into Apostles. The only ways for WhiteNight to be defeated are to completely kill WhiteNight itself, or to have the Twelfth Apostle do Confession work on One Sin and Hundreds of Good Deeds.

I've seen others suggest that this last apostle is Michelle, who told the Head about them, or it could be someone else. Personally, I like the idea that it was Michelle, but... I'm also partial to the idea that it's Ayin himself, given that even up to the duration of Ruina, we have the Librarians saying that they enjoyed being with Carmen, and Ayin was the first one of her followers to realise (during management, in ways they couldn't see) that perhaps they shouldn't be following her exactly to the letter and spirit anymore. So he's either that last one, or he's connected somehow to our good friend One Sin, who is there at the start of every single Facility.

This is due to Adam, who shares a lot in common with WhiteNight.

Adam: Abnormalities are the true humans of this age. They are the pure form that bursts out from the chrysalis that is our empty skin. They feared and tried to contain the Abnormalities. Do not place blame upon their ignorance. It is only natural for one to fear being naked in the face of the world. At least you and I know one thing. Carmen shall be our forbidden fruit for the new humanity.

Now, yes, we can't just take Adam's words as flat truth. But if we take how he speaks about Carmen, and the bad end you get from not being able to face him either through his questions or from failing his Core Suppression, we get something that's very similar to the fallout of the White Nights and Dark Days, but on a bigger scale.

People start distorting. It isn't called that yet, but as Adam sees it:

Adam: Everything that was suppressed, bursting out in every shape and figure possible. Does it not make you tremble in excitement? 

Yeah, that's distortion.

Even if Carmen wasn't WhiteNight before, and Ayin wasn't the twelfth apostle or One Sin at the start, they certainly are now.

Which leads us to - what about now?

Perhaps in contrast to what she was like before, perhaps not, she now focuses far more on "you should live for yourself, rather than for the sake of the City" than anything else.

"The children that underwent the experiment…"

"It's too late. The way back is gone. That clear ignorance of the world made the children rather burdensome."

The merry voice mercilessly strikes down my question.

This is an exchange between Vergilius and Carmen, from Leviathan. Note how he expresses concern for the children he had been trying to save, and she is dismissive of his concerns, and described as "mercilessly" striking down his question.

She then goes on to emphasise to him how none of the awful things that happened were "his fault."

She also says something that calls back to Adam's words, regarding humanity and distortion:

"…It's certainly not a normal form to take."

"Normal… To them, they are normal while the world is the abnormal one. But more importantly, they have come to cherish themselves and see the world through their own eyes."

Emphasis mine.

It isn't only Vergilius she's being dismissive of while attempting to distort him, however.

"It is to become a self unbound by the eyes and standards of the City. However, the resulting form changes depending on the way it was revealed. …Thanks to my junior, who has a different idea than me, joining the Light."

The word "junior" being insignificantly introduced and disregarded bothered me. It was spoken with a light and calm tone, but I feel as if it was involved in every cause and effect.

Emphasis mine again, because as Vergilius says, that's a very big thing to just brush aside as a "by the way"! Ayin's very presence in the Light itself, without him having to say anything or do anything outright, allows people to manifest EGO - and yet, Carmen's reaction to this is not pride. She simply states it as a fact.

She also refers to Ayin as only her "junior," and not as someone who was one of the leading researchers alongside her, and who finished the work she started. By the time she is talking to Vergilius here, he is FAR more than just her "junior," and if she used that term in a more fond manner then I'm sure Vergilius would have noted that.

"If what you say is true… Are you saying we shouldn't look at anything other than ourselves?"

"…You ask the same question as my junior. We must struggle, but as human beings, we should use reason, not emotion…"

The voice adjusted itself.

"So, he said, we have to fight in the most human way possible, through clothing and tools, while holding the human form in high regard."

"……"

"But that only pollutes the results. You don't need moderation when revealing yourself. After all, if you go through something without properly reaching its conclusion and keep going in such a roundabout way, your wish will become diluted and be forgotten all over again."

This is also vastly important towards understanding both Ayin and Carmen's different stances on humanity and distortion vs. EGO; Carmen here outright says things that have Vergilius asking if she means people "shouldn't look at anything other than ourselves," and I do have to wonder what tone she was taking when she talks about him, because of the line "the voice adjusted itself" - what from? She clearly isn't proud. Was it annoyance? Irritation? Here is another person who, like Ayin, is opposing her ideas of how things should work, after all.

She sees both Ayin and Vergilius' takes as "polluting the results." That you can't take other people into consideration when focusing on your dreams, because your own wish will be forgotten along the way.

I've put this here rather than right back at the start, because it's plausible that the past years as the Bucket have changed her, and she is in the light and all that now. But... how much, really, do we know hasn't changed? Do we know if this isn't what she felt all the way back before she died?

Remember: Ayin argued against her ideas before she killed herself. We were not privy to that argument, however... we are privy to this one - where she refers to his ideas as, as stated, "polluting the results." Do we know that this is not what she said all the way back then? Simply putting it in nicer terms, so that he had no way to say that she wasn't right?

Either way, she's gone from someone who wanted people to be able to understand each other without causing harm, while at the same time most likely being unaware of how harmful she was being to those around her, to someone who is causing others to distort, and sees absolutely nothing wrong with this.

The way I see it, Roland wasn't wrong in his estimation to call her a cult leader. She gathered people around her - often vulnerable people, several of them young - and told those who were old enough to think for themselves and who were able to go to other places that they were "always in the palm of [her] hand." She was able to walk the Backstreets even before recruiting Kali, a Grade 2 Fixer who would later become a Colour. Each of the people who she recruited trusted her more than they really and truly knew each other... it certainly has a lot in common with a cult, even if wasn't, or even if that wasn't what she intended.

There's a reason why, in my opinion, some of the Limbus Company enemies that are associated with her are people such as Kromer, Ahab, and Dongbaek, who drew people to their cause in spite of It being all for the sake of their own selfish desires.

All in all... when I say that I am biased against her and that I don't like her, my views come from how she is a person who was responsible for a lot of harm, be it intentional or not, and she foisted her work and problems onto others when she knew she couldn't carry on with it.