#albeit

hrm i think i like crk...

We need context first so here is a quick review of what you need to know:

The story of Cain and Able is simple. The two men, sons of Adam and Eve are making sacrifices to God. While Cain’s sacrifice was more physically abundant, Abel’s sacrifice was more substantial because he sacrificed ‘more’. Cain didn’t stand to lose much from his gifts. Regardless, Able was chosen as the winner by God. Filled with jealousy and rage, Cain killed Able and committed the first act of murder on Earth. God exiled Cain and he was forced to wander. God did add protection to Cain though as Cain was worried someone else might try to kill him. According to Genesis 4:15 though, God marked Cain and said anyone who killed him would receive a sevenfold punishment, or a punishment seven times worse. How does this connect to TADC?

C&A (the company’s logo we see while Pomni is running through the ‘Stanley Parable’ looking office) presumably stands for Caine and Able! Yes ‘Cain’ is spelled differently for the show. Anyway, in this scenario the CEO would be God. He oversees all of the company, and that makes Caine and Able in running for the company’s chair.

Caine and Able both present something to the CEO to win his favoritism and put them in running for the position. The CEO chooses Able. After, Caine does something to betray Able (could be anything from sabotaging Able’s gift, to murder), the CEO forces Caine to work on TADC (or send him back, either works), exiling him and ruining his opportunity to be the favorable one at all. Perhaps he worked in a division by himself, protecting him from others who may take issue with his presence. The CEO has marked Caine as someone not to be messed with, much like God did for the biblical Cain. Caine (the pearly white one) gets sucked into the world; he is the first human to get stuck there. He is forced to wander the digital plane.

Since Caine was working on the game though he knows access codes and the likes, so is able to grant himself abilities to alter the world. But he doesn’t have total power (and I don’t think he wants it). But as more people get stuck in there, Caine, who worked to make the world, feels bad for how it has trapped them, so he tries to help them not only as an apology but to try and redeem himself for betraying his ‘brother’.

Perhaps Able is actually dead, and Caine, true to his namesake, killed Abel to try and get the company passed down to him. Can’t pass it to the dead brother after all. Regardless, Caine would be in control of virtually (haha) everything except for the minds of other humans, something that no code has access to.

Something I didn’t mention was that Cain, in the original biblical story, worked and built a town after his exile. What does the ringmaster Caine do? Make a habitable place for human minds in the circus. He gives them enrichment and entertainment, knowing full well that this is not a holy paradise. But he does make the most of it. And once again, here he is protected, having a high status that no one dares to test. He has built a salvation for him.