| “ | Why persist with this tired out act? Why battle? Resist it? And try to fight back? Ugh, your predessors just wouldn't quit. The freedom of choice put them down in the pit | „ |
| ~ Well it's safe to say this guy ain't the goofy naive ringmaster we all know and love. |
Hello there ladies, gentlemen, and all those inbetween! I got another proposal for you all today! And here we have yet another odd case of adaptational villainy. Regardless, I think this guy has a pretty good chance of counting, so let's not waste anymore time and get straight into this!
What is the Work?[]
"OBEY" is a fan-song based off the popular web-series The Amazing Digital Circus. It focuses on Caine as he tries to convince Pomni to stop trying to find an exit and to become completely subservient to him, with him using past examples of those who have abstracted to prove his point that it's better to just stay and suffer an eternity in the circus. Ultimately this doesn't seem to work, as Pomni runs off at the end of the song, leaving Caine to question where she went.
Who is He? What has he done?[]
Caine is the main antagonist of this song. Shown to be significantly more aware of the suffering that his circus he's caused and simply being uncaring of it. He runs the Digital Circus with the goal of having everyone serve him without question while casually mentioning how they will be spending the rest of eternity in his digital hell.
Show complete apathy and minor frustration to how his circus has caused people to completely lose their minds and abstract into eldritch horrors, he uses their past failures to encourage his current residents to not fight back, to let themselves forget who they used to be and to become his little circus animals where everything is the same day after day after day. Safe to say, not quite as goofy or friendly as his canon counterpart is.
Heinous Standard?[]
In terms of the video standard? Yeah he passes. The only other "villains" featured in this song are the past victims of abstraction, which even then their crimes are off screen not to mention that Caine is the reason they exist at all.
As for the general standard? Well Caine runs a digital hell where people completely forget who they are, causing them to lose their minds while also setting them on crazy and goofy adventures, all without a care. And as we see, his circus is so damaging that it's caused several people (around seven from what we see) that it causes them to abstract and turn into eldritch beasts, and he knows full well that the circus is destroying their minds.
| “ | You've been here a week? You're feeling adverse? My performers before you had it far worse | „ |
So yeah, safe to say he lacks the naive traits aren't really a problem here. And while you could argue that he doesn't want his members to abstract, he still uses the past abstractions as examples for why everyone should completely obey him and even uses it as a threat at certain points.
| “ | Don't think too abstract. Or you'll end up below | „ |
And even then, beyond all that, without abstraction the circus is still absolute hell for all of its residents, as shown by Kinger.
| “ | I'm losing my friends, and I'm losing my mind, it's checkmate at endgame and nothing's fine. Day after day after day after day we all crack and none of us here are going to go back | „ |
Oh and don't worry about offscreen villainy either, we have repeated showings of Caine's past victims abstracting as you can see from the images above. So yeah, no problems there.
Mitigating Factors?[]
| “ | THAT WAS HORRIFYING... ANYWAY | „ |
| ~ Caine after witnessing Kinger have a full on meltdown. |
Honestly I feel like this line says enough, but I'll go into detail regardless. When it comes to canon Caine, his character is nowhere near close to Complete Monster, at least from what we know of him so far and from how Gooseworx describes him. In this music video though? Yeah no. Not only is he shown to be very much aware of what his circus is doing to people, but he's completely apathetic to it. The most he shows is mild frustration at how his past residents just didn't know when to give up, otherwise? He could care less, the only thing that losing his members to abstraction that really bothers him is that he's lost toys that he can play with, that's it.
Now he does put on an affable facade in front of Pomni and the other circus residents. This is clearly all just an act in order to get on Pomni's good side. And even then he isn't exactly subtle with how he casually mentions that she's here for an eternity and that trying to leave will result in her abstraction and subsequent imprisonment inside the cellar.
| “ | I'm not trying to scare, just be prepared for an eternity in here | „ |
The only real thing I could see concerning Caine is that he's still portrayed as rather goofy in this music video. But he's more a Bill Cipher type of comedic as opposed to say, Big Jack Horner. In that he's goofy but his actions are portrayed as horrific, if anything the goofy demeanor he has on constantly just kind of shows how he views the other circus members' suffering as a complete joke and could not care less about it.
As for actual redeeming qualities? None really, he's not shown to genuinely care about anyone, only viewing his residents as pawns for him to play with, and Bubble doesn't even appear at all in this song, he might not even exist in this world for all we know.
And before you ask, yes, this music video is different enough from the source material and does have a proper plot to it. Not only does it utilize a lot of fanon, like Kinger and Queenie being romantically envolves, but the digital circus residents who fell to abstraction go from simply being crossed out icons on room doors, to actual characters. And the song itself is about Pomni being trapped in the circus with Caine trying to convince her to submit to the circus as opposed to just being about how evil and bad Caine is. Plus as mentioned above, his actions are shown on-screen, so either way I don't think this is a problem.
Verdict?[]
And that's another one for the weird, adaptational, Pure Evils pile!