umi

I’m so happy that my analyses piqued your interests … spreading the kalim agenda (and infecting everyone with the kalim agenda to slowly indoctrinate people into the crazier ideas I post on Twitter) is half the reason why i do them in the first place. he is genuinely such an interesting character that im not even sure you can properly explain everything about him in one post without missing a few other details that add to his nuance (even my 10K+ word analyses - the point is to drive a point with those, but it isn’t the end-all be-all of his character)

I especially hope that it touches more people’s hearts after Book 7 and Book 7.5, and that I can generally help to explain a little of how his logic works (and doesn’t immediately get dismissed as “he’s being stupid/incompetent”). With the way he’s written, it’s even harder to say that what he’s thinking (and most of the cast just understands that he’s unpredictable. I think I can count on one hand the amount of people in the cast who genuinely try to piece him together, and it shows in Kalim’s interactions with those people as well). Like… right after Book 7 Chapter 9 came out, I made that analysis … and although Book 7.5 did vindicate me in some areas (keeping his true feelings close), it outright showed us his thoughts (first time we ever get to see them properly) and how he’s not exactly focusing on wanting to get along with Jamil for the sake of altruism (recognizing that Jamil may try to take over the Asim family, and making the resolve that he won’t allow that - although he was smiling during the conversation with Jamil) (this is contrasting the idea that maybe he might be balancing his position as heir with helping out Jamil in any way he can. he basically tells us that he’s not going to do that straightforward and has his interests ie keeping his family safe and keeping his position as heir), and emphasizing that “cold indifference” that we see in the story a few times but never in the main story (I think back to Kalim’s moment with Riddle in his school uniform story, or Kalim’s reaction to some fighters in the tamashina mina ring insulting him outright and his reaction to it).

It gives me the vibes of what’s described in his newly released parfum (setting sun, hiding a gentle serenity, etc). It’s just another nuance to him, but even with me saying this, it’s definitely not all there is to his character. he’s an empathetic guy who wants people to be happy bcuz that makes him happy! but he’s slowly enforcing boundaries and it’ll look off and offensive because he’s so used to giving to others; that’s what most people are used to. but he still wants to get along with people. but he can’t ignore his own feelings anymore! he also interacts differently with different people, and as he learns about the world he was isolated from, his learning curves will also look off and unfocused because he’s actively looking for direction as well; there’s a reason he tells us he got tired of distrusting people as he grew up. but like any other teenage boy, he still wants to cement an ego, so even if his ideas sound weird or off and he’s stubborn over it, it doesn’t hurt to listen to them, especially because that is most of the cast anyway lol.

his max level voice line is about how he wants to understand us more, and wants us to learn more about him, too. his max friendship lvl voice line is about him wanting to give us clothes or jewels as a thanks and him then trying to figure out what it is we really want if not materialistic gifts from him. in both cases, after getting to understand him more, you realize the way he interacts with the world is through trying to understand it too. (or at least, that’s what’s emphasized in a reciprocative way after trying to understand him first.) that quiet serenity … it’s not really delusional. it’s just that some people might be more touched over it than others, but it’s these little things that make him feel so real to me…

so besides the obvious answer of “kalim is the obstacle between jamil and his parents for jamil to not get beat by them over book 4”, or purely financial dependence, i think we can do a little better than that, but we’ll need to go over some things first lmao

first off, i would like to clear up what codependency means. codependency is an imbalanced relationship between two people where one is considered as the “giver” and one is considered as the “taker”. a lot of people assume that they only strictly follow one role in a codependent relationship, and while this may be true in some especially abusive relationships, the relationship between Jamil and Kalim has either of them prioritizing the others’ wants and needs over their own in different ways or different situations (both assume the roles of givers and takers at different times, even without duress). I won’t include book 4 moments bcuz this was especially a time where both of them were under duress for different reasons (and behaviour in relationships change depending on how much stress you apply, so it’s not a good control for finding symptoms).

not to say they’re not under constant stress all the time, but particularly when it comes to each other - jamil with balancing his mixed feelings about Kalim even more with him insulting him to dorm students while keeping amicable facades, and kalim with his concern over Jamil that he made clear to yuu and spent his non-hypnotized time trying to make things easier on jamil + help his dorm students at the same time - it ends up heightening even more.

another thing before I can start talking bcuz context is important; people assume kalim has more power than he actually has (if the Asim family were punitive, why do people constantly attempt to kill him/why hasn’t some family members been prosecuted? the public is mainly unaware of what goes on). and assume that jamil has less power than he actually has (confirmed by jamil’s initial attempts at cooking in Jade’s Halloween story - this wasn’t a job, the adults in the estate were telling Jamil that children shouldn’t use utensils or fire/they didn’t want them doing dangerous work) (it’s why I stress that Jamil’s parents wanted him to make good to kalim all the time rather than it be an expectation of a formal contract). this is important to the context of kalim and jamil’s actions and what they generally could and couldn’t do in relation to each other, as well as explaining what specifically stops them from being able to do certain things.

okie last thing; people assume the point of keeping them together is to work towards a healthy relationship but I think canon accepts the two of them together with or without the healthy part. part of scarabia students value is to go through the hard route to get to the end goal, if the reward is that valuable. (the latter is something Jamil has to realize).

anyway with those few things out of the way, not even considering book 4 and how kalim would send himself back to his estate (where they try to kill him + he has a lack of freedom) just to help jamil, or lie to jade while hypnotized even though he knew it was bad for him just to help Jamil, a lot of kalim’s attempts at being the “giver” in the relationship is greatly tied to the idea of self-worth. specifically, how he affirms Jamil’s ego - and to do this, either conceals himself in the process (to the point where even jamil doesn’t realize it/the narrative doesn’t emphasize it) (and esp when kalim, who says he himself has a problem with not able to voice all of his thoughts out into the open, and also does not trip up easily when things don’t go according to plan except in a few cases, doesn’t make room for the narrative to emphasize this either), or affirms Jamil skills to the point of extremity (where in jamil’s cooking card, jamil’s cooking in general looks really plain - he didn’t listen to when najma said it, but his clubmates confirmed it. it’s half implied part of the reason for this is bcuz kalim compliments jamil and his cooking in general way too much, and doesn’t point out the small details unless asked, so a “truth” was created in jamil’s mind about this).

anyway, back to the first point there; I think the most interesting example of “kalim concealing himself” (that comes to mind) is in kalim’s lab coat card, where he was using the kitchen for his homework, it blows up, and then he tells Jamil that they need to get it fixed so Jamil can cook food for their party. the entire party wasn’t actually for kalim’s enjoyment or just a whim, it was originally to allow jamil to make friends with other people through acts of service, as well as a way for jamil to show off his skills the first is something kalim himself is concerned over when it comes to jamil, but never mentions the point of the party to Jamil until the end of the story where it didn’t matter bcuz that party wasn’t happening anymore. kalim wanted to explain himself to Jamil to explain his actions. Jamil stopped it from happening so it didn’t matter at that point anymore whether Kalim said it or not, and I don’t think he initially mentioned it bcuz who would like to hear that he was concerned over your ability to make friends... the second is something jamil is actively concerned about.

back to the story; jamil gets mad at him over the last minute party - and then kalim cancels the party (but starts another one for ruggie instead). however, he’s still carrying out acts with jamil’s wishes in mind. it’s why kalim tells ruggie he needs to take responsibility for getting jamil upset, decides to cook as well, but also says he can’t cook with utensils bcuz jamil told him not to. in general, this is him attempting to do things the way jamil would want from him, but things like restrictions on cooking (that are actually a callback to the adults of the asim estate telling jamil as a child that children shouldn’t be using utensils or fire to cook) (and then jamil applying that to kalim, as if he were a child…) but also that Kalim not cooking meaning he isn’t taking responsibility for the party himself… means there were a lot of crazy loopholes kalim had to find to figure out how to best help jamil. and at the end, he still uses the whole “i got to cook myself!” to uplift Jamil and emphasize his skills. the whole line of thinking is “so if jamil doesn’t want to show his cooking skills to others, does he just not want the party? okay, someone else wants the party, but last time i tried to hold a party, jamil got mad over it, so i need to take responsibility for the party myself by cooking this time! i still have a small habit of relying on Jamil, but i won’t! …but im not allowed to cook conventionally, so what if i just use magic to cook? oh! jamil showed up at the party! jamil, i did cook this all with help from ruggie with magic, but it just shows how amazing you are! to show how important your words are to me, like i promised, even though i made all this food you can cook a meal for me, jamil!”. the idea is that kalim is able to learn to cook, and outright asks ruggie to teach him, but juggling what jamil wanted in general means that he doesn’t go for obvious options that should have been available to him. even kalim taking the perspective of “cooking” was him doing it with Jamil in mind, beginning and end, and not solely his own desire.

(outside of his relationship with Jamil, this is something that is pretty consistent throughout Kalim’s development; for example, playfulland where Floyd and Jade tell him not to let other people bud him in line bcuz it holds it up for everyone else, then the tweels attempting to bud other people by scaring the ever-loving shit out of them, and then kalim realizes the point isn’t the position in line or how it would make other people feel, but everyone’s boredom of waiting, so he tries to put on a performance to keep everyone entertained. and then a staff comes in with another “restriction” and it’s that no unauthorized street performances are allowed period.)

but it’s a little more complex than “Kalim listens to everything Jamil tells him”. he still does things in his attempts to help Jamil (or help others in general, but we’re specifically talking abt Jamil lmao) that may go against what Jamil wants/is done generally behind his back. the overarching example of this is when it comes to poison. kalim and jamil don’t do things in a vacuum, some of what they do is directly in response to another’s - and that initial reaction could have been a response to something else. it’s the same here - Jamil feels obligated to taste test for poison for Kalim, and this ended up with him going into a coma (im going to emphasize that jamil is not the only one who went comatose from poison). to prevent kalim from getting poisoned, Jamil also decided to cook all of kalim’s meals himself. he wasn’t the only one trying to find solutions to this; kalim decides to learn to detect poisons himself and thus was not poisoned since he was 14 years old. this means that Jamil no longer needed to taste test food bcuz it’s redundant - kalim can eat by detecting poison at the first bite and spit it out before anything happens. it’s implied (at least through the manga) that this was thorough education on his part and may or may not have involved getting physically familiar with the poisons (like the poison vault kalim decides as a first solution to the first years not being able to remember poisonous plants) (but the poison vault didn’t just include poisonous plants, but every poison under the sun…).

anyway, back to the “haven’t been poisoned since I was 14” thing. what’s interesting is that Jamil chalks this up only to Jamil taste testing his food for him. and… Kalim doesn’t say anything else about what he himself has done to help. the time when Kalim mentions being able to detect poison in the main story is in book 5. it generally painted jamil with an all-competent narrative in book 4, and is part of the reason why people didn’t understand that kalim knows how to detect poison himself (even though it says so in his profile…). “if Jamil was doing all this, why would Kalim need to? isn’t that just another thing jamil convinced Kalim he knew how to do it even if Jamil did it better?” - except we get explicit confirmation from the main story that, like how jamil’s skills weren’t getting properly recognized, kalim’s weren’t either. he didn’t want Jamil to suffer. even worse, bcuz he not only didn’t want Jamil to suffer from being physically hurt, but also wanted to listen to jamil’s desires to show his skills and emphasize them to everyone else, it meant kalim didn’t try to get jamil to stop even though he knew what to do about the poison himself. it’s why kalim settles on the solution to only eat things jamil makes him - or if he or Jamil watches the person making his meals. this solution allows for jamil to be safe and for Jamil to show his skills, but in case anything happens, Kalim can detect the poison (implied to be everything except with curries, which makes sense bcuz that’s a blend of spices that may be too much to pick out the poison from). “if kalim knew that Jamil has troubles in book 4 why didn’t he-“ this is mainly your answer. he’s practically explored all avenues, even when it comes to the extremes like life and death, to balance the things Jamil wanted.

beyond that, the point is that Kalim is a character with his own stakes as well. him doing or not doing things is tied with jamil’s desires and wants. he didn’t care for most of it, including the ones that restricted him and what kalim could learn to do himself (where Kalim can say he was helping as an equal, because he was helping Jamil to show his skills when comparing him to Kalim bcuz Jamil wouldn’t do it otherwise bcuz of the Viper parents - and this actually worked to earn the respect of the Scarabia dorm students when they say a Viper child would be more fitting as a dorm leader), until he realized in book 4 and says in book 5 that this not only extended to these things but things like competitions or ranking systems where Kalim genuinely thought his skills were better until he realizes Jamil was letting him win most of the time (when he’s normally good at being self aware of what his strengths and weaknesses are). unlike the aforementioned times, there was nothing Kalim was doing in those situations to help; it’s the same problem Jamil has with other people where they assume a level of pride over skills that they have over other people that may or may not be true, as stated in book 6. we as the audience didn’t initially see it like that from Kalim’s end bcuz Kalim is rly good at supporting Jamil and his narrative, and most people don’t have the opinion that Kalim is good at some things. thankfully this is realized and kalim starts to work on his independence.

why is jamil dependant on this? it’s an avenue of jamil to show his competence, and most likely how he didn’t go completely insane, stir-crazy, or end up in a depressive funk over his situation. but more likely evidence of this is jamil’s reactions (before book 7, at least) when Kalim breaks his expectations/other people break Jamil’s expectations of his own skills. the most tame examples of this is jamil getting a little bit sentimental (or a lot) if Kalim breaks expectations and not rly knowing how to conduct himself/getting uncomfortable. the most extreme example is in jamil’s cooking card, where he sees it as an insult to his pride over his skills so he tries to rectify it.

to sum it up; kalim, much like jamil with kalim in said aforementioned situation, was giving jamil a similar truth in his mind. he normally prioritizes this; he only does things behind jamil’s back that jamil won’t like when he has concerns over safety, and will also try to hide this generally from others if it can also help to emphasize jamil’s “truth” in his (and others’) mind. jamil was reliant enough on this truth to 1. continue doing things the way he always has been even if kalim was expanding his skills, and 2. develop an image of jamil’s own skills in his mind that may or may not have aligned with reality.

there’s a few other things I could mention, like how Jamil says that Kalim like all Scarabia students know how to do his makeup, but Jamil still does it every morning; or how Kalim knows how to wrap his turban, and has multiple ways of wrapping the headband according to tamashina mina, but jamil still does it + kalim tries to get yuu to do it in one of his voice lines… there’s a lot. it might be easier to say that kalim is completely dependent on jamil and not the other way around, but there are things Kalim did do before book 4 that gave Jamil room outside of his mindset to be able to have the rep he did (before book 4 lmao).

ofc, jamil may have just seen everything as an obligation on his part to comply, or maybe a part of him did see opportunity in what was happening. but in some if not most cases in their interactions, he had to rely on these ideas to build an ego/avoid an ego death. it’s an abstract concept but we do have canon evidence that the interpretation that they’re both codependent on each other is closer to canon than most think; in book 7, it is part of why kalim, although a servant who can do things for jamil, was still in jamil’s dream. said directly in canon, kalim was the reason jamil’s skills developed/were recognized. kalim now being a servant doesn’t change this, bcuz the same “giving” and “taking” applies here when it comes to jamil’s skills. bcuz this is something they both actively did, it doesn’t matter who the servant or master is in the context, it’ll happen anyway to form a similar ego for jamil whether he is the master or servant. i feel like that’s pretty big evidence anyway.