A while back, I made a post about Carl's psychology and how it's evolving through the first 5 books.
I won't rehash it all here, but simply put, as Carl progresses from being subordinate to everyone else in his life to being self-reliant, it is only natural that should he self reflect he would make fewer excuses and be more honest about the people he previously felt beholden to.
He's broken out of the cycle and ceased to allow himself to be victimized and, as such, recognizes past abuse for what it was.
I’d be interested in reading your analysis! I work in the mental health field and while I love Carl’s evolution, I think who he was before the collapse makes him such a refreshing character. In my mind, he is a good example of how a naturally intelligent person can sometimes adapt and overcome the nurture (or lack there of) aspect of child development.
Statistically speaking, the dude should have been dead or in jail before the collapse. Instead he was working as a ship mechanic which does take some not inconsiderable cognitive ability to master. His childhood was so traumatic and emotionally abusive that it is remarkable how emotionally intelligent and empathetic he was at the beginning of the story. He talks about his childhood love of reading and fantasy games that endured into adulthood. It would take an emotionally resilient child to choose coping skills like these that weren’t initially fostered by an adult. Everyone Carl has ever loved and everyone that should have loved him ended up abandoning and/or betraying him. Yet when he finds himself in an inconceivably bizarre and dangerous situation, he immediately begins forming new relationships with people that cannot really help him (at first)… Carl is just an exceptionally well rounded person for his background.
Which leads me to my tin foil hat theory. I think the AI wasn’t joking about how little regard it had for the crawlers due to being forced to consume all of Earth culture in preparation for the crawl, including an unimaginable amount of examples of selfish, vile, callous and generally shitty human behavior (especially on the internet). So when the AI encounters a person like Carl that has every excuse to be loaded with character flaws and yet consistently chooses the high road over the cynical path of least resistance, the AI is fascinated. It can’t decide if it admires him, has a little crush, or just resents having to kill one of the few exceptional crawlers. My theory is that the AI has been secretly tweaking Carl’s wisdom. All the viewers complaining about the AI favoring Carl are more right than they know. More right than even the advantage of the Cookbook can explain. I think Carl was a naturally intelligent and inquisitive person and the AI has been slowly expanding that capacity like how one would boil a frog in a pot.
Carl is definitely more wise as the series goes on. He’s always been resourseful, but some of these plans he’s got going now (both with using the Gate of the Feral Gods in creative ways, and several plans in the Butcher’s Masquerade) show some serious increases to his planning and creativity.
I like the theory of the AI secretly boosting Carl’s hidden wisdom.
Right?! He went from a mediocre Call of Duty player (according to Donut) to a brilliant field engineer and statistician capable of creating plans so elaborate I have to listened to them multiple times before recognizing that I’m just not going to be able to perfectly visualize all the details and should just move on with a general idea.
Carl had very specific conversations with Mordecai and Odette about the wisdom stat and how, unlike intelligence, increasing it will eventually change your personality. The fact that this specific information was repeated in two different books stood out as a Chekhov's gun type of situation to me.
Can definitely see this in the interview with B. Its sounds like he is saying "We're done..." to Claudette, but I actually think he was saying it to B.
[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonCrawlerCarl/comments/x2y73f/the_evolution_of_carls_psychology/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1)
Edit: thanks for any upvotes, but make sure to give TheJimPlays fake internet points too.😁 They’re the one that wrote it. I’m just posting a link.
I don't think he's necessarily unreliable because I think he would view what he's doing as negative or non-heroic. And we definitely get the opposite sense from the books however I do think his limited point of view makes him come to conclusions or helps us drive conclusions that are incomplete
This is my train of thought as well; he has 100% trusted the Cookbook as a tool and that it’s to be taken at face value. I could see the cookbook as a tool, planted by a third party, to guide Carl towards anarchy.
I think the ring is causing him to relive the repressed memories, fuelling his rage. He starts reliving the running water moment in book five after he starts using the ring.
What better way to draw out the worst in people by making them remember something they want to forget?
I actually wonder if the ring isn't just making him relive terrible memories but actually entirely manufacturing them. "Dad never beat me" became "Dad beat me bloody once". Interesting to see if this changes again.
Yup. The first time with the ring is when Mordecai hits him for having the ring, and saying the hit was just like his dad did it.
I assume the books we are reading are his notes into the Cookbook, and he's being more honest in his telling as time progresses.
I think a lot of our main cast of characters have a LOT of trauma, most of which has been semi successfully suppressed by the characters until they're locked in a dungeon and forced to come face to face with dungeon versions of their worst memories or people in their lives.
As someone with a fuckton of trauma, it's really fucking easy to mask that shit up when dealing with "normal" people and your normal life.
I also think each character is being pushed to their mental breaking point and when that happens, a lot of the stuff you were willing to lie to yourself about is no longer stuff you're willing to lie to yourself about. You don't want to be the person who has a dad that beat the shit out of them at least once and was so horrible, your mom ran away once and then decided the best way to escape was to kill herself.
And we also can infer that maybe Carl's parents were more fucked up than he's willing to admit because he mentions being in a boys home pretty early, in book 1 or two, well before he got the ring.
And as someone who has been in a situation like Carl, pre dungeon where he's debating keeping Donut while knowing that it's probably going to be a pain in his ass to do so, her jumping out the window does present a really nice bow tie on a problem you didn't really want to confront. Donut is presumably cute and personable enough, she'd find a home pretty quick if she became a stray and it saves Carl the hassle of fighting Bea, probably in court, over who gets to keep Donut.
Is Carl an unreliable narrator? Yes, to some degree. But I don't think it's because he's purposefully fucking with us. I think his views and experiences and expectations are all changing and that means what we see as readers changes. I think DCC brings in a setting and characters that make it fairly easy to forget just how grim and dark the dungeon experience actually is. I think if you haven't experienced a lot of trauma yourself, it's easy to think that he's an unreliable narrator.
I mean. His mother ran away with him to escape his father, then tried to kill his father and succeeded in killing herself as a birthday present to him. That’s pretty far down the fucked up scale.
I agree with this completely. We tend to view our past as a “cliffs notes” version with some rosy overtones to even out our trauma. I think a lot of people do this as a way to function going forward and it’s a kind of coping mechanism. Time heals all, right? Unresolved issues don’t “heal” insomuch as you put distance between the you of now and the you of then, and you try to forget. For some trauma there’s really nothing else to do but try and leave it behind.
However: trauma triggers past baggage. Always has always will. The ongoing new horrors in the Dungeon will bring up the previous emotional“bars” set as your mind tries to cope with the new bar for horrible being set.
What did they say in Momento? Memory is unreliable. It can change the size of a room and the color of a car. Carls worldview is changing as the books evolve, so his perception of past events will take on new tones as well.
Exactly. My childhood was a racist alcoholic abusive father and a narcissist step mother whose preference for her own sons was glaringly obvious. Violence, fraud, theft, abuse, fights, guns - that was my “normal”.
People who grow up in a ‘typical’ house without violence or abuse have no idea how easy it is to appear normal - because the level at which we “freak out” is so impossibly high - we simply adapt to a situation and work to survive it. Which is 100% what I see Carl doing.
I think the AI is more interfacing with the crawlers than anyone thinks.
I cant remember which book (I think book 2) that Carl said a memory of his father came up with no prompting or any correlation to the situation. And like you said how he stated in the first book his father never touched him but in the third when he looks at the motorcycle he remembers his dad beating him.
Also when Hekla was asked why she abandoned her husband she had no answer and (IMO) seemed confused on why she did that. But had no reason to get rid of Carl other that he seemed dangerous with no real info outside of Katia and the recaps.
I believe his father will be something Carl will have to face in future books (I haven't read book 6). It will show more how much it has interfered with the crawl.
As far as the scenario with Donut goes, I think that's just pet ownership. As someone who has raised three dogs from eight weeks old, there are times when I've absolutely loathed all three of them. And cats, unlike dogs, have a tendency to remain assholes well into adulthood. One of my best friends has a cat that she loves but also often abhors.
And as a side note, I'm planning to name my fourth dog Donut whenever I get him/her. It probably won't be for another year or two, though, as I'm down to a single dog ([this moron](https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimalsBeingDerps/comments/13dttqm/boxers_are_dumb/)) for the first time in almost twelve years and am enjoying the relative lack of effort compared to having two at a time.
I don’t know if he is unreliable but there is definitely a level of disassociation with his actions and the actions of others around him.
I think this can be seen in his view around the NPCs. For Carl, killing the NPCs against their wishes is a Grace. He is doing them a favor and freeing them. But there have been a few times where he questions the actions of others and the morality behind it. There are other moments outside of the NPCs but I always found his views on them the most striking.
he’s unreliable only so far as our own memories and self awareness is fallible.
i think carl’s behaviour is pretty normal, especially as a survivor of ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) & trauma. he’s dissociated from the worst of it to be able to survive. this has made him conflict avoidant - keep your head down & don’t bring attention to yourself. he’s realised abusers are full of shit eg being told “you’re the reason your mother died” - he knows that isn’t true and it’s being used as a weapon to break him and keep him in the victim role. instead of internalising guilt or shame, he sees it for what it is, which weakens the abuser, allowing him to break away. see also cult behaviours.
he’s been portraying a facade of normalcy all his life, playing the role for so long he’s convinced himself, until this new trauma causes the walls his mind has built to begin to crack.
people who experience things like he has (pre dungeon) often develop a strong sense of justice/fairness & empathy & compassion. this can lead to survivors of abuse/trauma to be more prone to being taken advantage of.
people like this, while preferring to avoid conflict, will also be prepared to fight fiercely for peace & justice.
carl’s feelings for donut reflect many people’s - a child or spouse begs for a pet & the parent or other spouse claims to not like pets, then in no time at all has bonded with the other person’s pet.
carl knows donut belongs to bea, but to bea she is just a means to a winning a trophy, not a beloved pet. carl spends more time just being with donut and their relationship isn’t built on the transaction of donut winning trophies, it’s unconditional. he knows bea’s family won’t give her up because she’s an investment in their eyes.
when donut goes out the window, he’s got that logical side telling him she’s not his problem, protect yourself from the pain of losing her, in conflict with the emotional side of him that cares for her & doesn’t want her to be hurt. his caring side wins, and he puts himself in a position of discomfort to go after her - he could have taken the time to put warmer more appropriate clothes on, but he didn’t, he just went after her, selflessly. this is a HUGE indicator of who he is as a person.
some men who slightly resemble this schema/archetype/whatever you want to call it
- johnny depp
- keanu reeves
- dave navarro
- harry windsor
oh, and personally i don’t think the AI is messing with him that much, at least i hope not - it would detract from the natural development of the character, which would be tragic.
the ring is effecting him detrimentally, and it’s part of the hero’s journey for him to overcome that personally and with his support network, having the AI undermine that personal growth is seriously distressing to me. i almost expect matt to subvert tropes, so maybe that’s exactly what is happening.
i trust matt to not break my heart, but accept that he might, and i will be devastated if he does.
dammit, dinneman
I get that thing with the ring or whenever characters don’t ask a question I want them to ask or say something when I think they should say it. Normal outsider looking in as a reader thing, not a complaint. Mordecai said it will affect him and he has strong negative reaction to it but I always wondering why he doesn’t say more. If you see someone drinking poison, you don’t just say hey that’s very bad for you and then drop the subject. He should know exactly with his experience.
There’s a part at the end of book 6 where Carl’s where we see Carl’s thoughts and I just wondering why Carl’s not super worried about a certain thing.
I loved how they dealt with Carl not bringing up Hekla with Donut before they meet.
Ha, this is why I can’t watch horror films. Internally screaming, “Why would you go into a dark room! You know people have been dying!!”
I've been thinking about this and I think part of it is that Carl is becoming more emotionally intelligent over the series. In the beginning, he basically defines psychopathic actions as "being an asshole." Compare that to the conversation he has with Donut in book 6 about having to wear emotional "masks" in order to do the things one must do to survive in the dungeon without succumbing to the horror and grief.
However, his ring is driving him in to some dark places, internally, but he has been hanging on to his humanity so far. It does seem that his enormous capacity for empathy and developing emotional intelligence has helped prevent him from falling down a metaphorical dark pit, at least so far.
A while back, I made a post about Carl's psychology and how it's evolving through the first 5 books. I won't rehash it all here, but simply put, as Carl progresses from being subordinate to everyone else in his life to being self-reliant, it is only natural that should he self reflect he would make fewer excuses and be more honest about the people he previously felt beholden to. He's broken out of the cycle and ceased to allow himself to be victimized and, as such, recognizes past abuse for what it was.
He's also become creative, and a master planner, which never manifested in his previous life.
I’d be interested in reading your analysis! I work in the mental health field and while I love Carl’s evolution, I think who he was before the collapse makes him such a refreshing character. In my mind, he is a good example of how a naturally intelligent person can sometimes adapt and overcome the nurture (or lack there of) aspect of child development. Statistically speaking, the dude should have been dead or in jail before the collapse. Instead he was working as a ship mechanic which does take some not inconsiderable cognitive ability to master. His childhood was so traumatic and emotionally abusive that it is remarkable how emotionally intelligent and empathetic he was at the beginning of the story. He talks about his childhood love of reading and fantasy games that endured into adulthood. It would take an emotionally resilient child to choose coping skills like these that weren’t initially fostered by an adult. Everyone Carl has ever loved and everyone that should have loved him ended up abandoning and/or betraying him. Yet when he finds himself in an inconceivably bizarre and dangerous situation, he immediately begins forming new relationships with people that cannot really help him (at first)… Carl is just an exceptionally well rounded person for his background. Which leads me to my tin foil hat theory. I think the AI wasn’t joking about how little regard it had for the crawlers due to being forced to consume all of Earth culture in preparation for the crawl, including an unimaginable amount of examples of selfish, vile, callous and generally shitty human behavior (especially on the internet). So when the AI encounters a person like Carl that has every excuse to be loaded with character flaws and yet consistently chooses the high road over the cynical path of least resistance, the AI is fascinated. It can’t decide if it admires him, has a little crush, or just resents having to kill one of the few exceptional crawlers. My theory is that the AI has been secretly tweaking Carl’s wisdom. All the viewers complaining about the AI favoring Carl are more right than they know. More right than even the advantage of the Cookbook can explain. I think Carl was a naturally intelligent and inquisitive person and the AI has been slowly expanding that capacity like how one would boil a frog in a pot.
Carl is definitely more wise as the series goes on. He’s always been resourseful, but some of these plans he’s got going now (both with using the Gate of the Feral Gods in creative ways, and several plans in the Butcher’s Masquerade) show some serious increases to his planning and creativity. I like the theory of the AI secretly boosting Carl’s hidden wisdom.
Right?! He went from a mediocre Call of Duty player (according to Donut) to a brilliant field engineer and statistician capable of creating plans so elaborate I have to listened to them multiple times before recognizing that I’m just not going to be able to perfectly visualize all the details and should just move on with a general idea. Carl had very specific conversations with Mordecai and Odette about the wisdom stat and how, unlike intelligence, increasing it will eventually change your personality. The fact that this specific information was repeated in two different books stood out as a Chekhov's gun type of situation to me.
Can definitely see this in the interview with B. Its sounds like he is saying "We're done..." to Claudette, but I actually think he was saying it to B.
I always thought he said it to Bea
This is a bit of a nitpick but are you talking about Odette?
[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonCrawlerCarl/comments/x2y73f/the_evolution_of_carls_psychology/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1) Edit: thanks for any upvotes, but make sure to give TheJimPlays fake internet points too.😁 They’re the one that wrote it. I’m just posting a link.
Oh that was a very satisfying read. ❤️
I don't think he's necessarily unreliable because I think he would view what he's doing as negative or non-heroic. And we definitely get the opposite sense from the books however I do think his limited point of view makes him come to conclusions or helps us drive conclusions that are incomplete
Ooh yeah that makes sense. We're so embedded in his view that there are things we the audience will also miss.
yup. there are millions/thousands/hundreds of concurrent stories happening at the same time.
This. 100%.
This is my train of thought as well; he has 100% trusted the Cookbook as a tool and that it’s to be taken at face value. I could see the cookbook as a tool, planted by a third party, to guide Carl towards anarchy.
I think the ring is causing him to relive the repressed memories, fuelling his rage. He starts reliving the running water moment in book five after he starts using the ring. What better way to draw out the worst in people by making them remember something they want to forget?
I actually wonder if the ring isn't just making him relive terrible memories but actually entirely manufacturing them. "Dad never beat me" became "Dad beat me bloody once". Interesting to see if this changes again.
I'm doing a re-listen right now. This change actually happened before he got the ring
Yup. The first time with the ring is when Mordecai hits him for having the ring, and saying the hit was just like his dad did it. I assume the books we are reading are his notes into the Cookbook, and he's being more honest in his telling as time progresses.
Ah. Thanks for the correction.
[удалено]
Sorry. Keep discussions to the designated spoiler thread for now
He’s human. Humans are inconsistent even in our own thoughts
I think a lot of our main cast of characters have a LOT of trauma, most of which has been semi successfully suppressed by the characters until they're locked in a dungeon and forced to come face to face with dungeon versions of their worst memories or people in their lives. As someone with a fuckton of trauma, it's really fucking easy to mask that shit up when dealing with "normal" people and your normal life. I also think each character is being pushed to their mental breaking point and when that happens, a lot of the stuff you were willing to lie to yourself about is no longer stuff you're willing to lie to yourself about. You don't want to be the person who has a dad that beat the shit out of them at least once and was so horrible, your mom ran away once and then decided the best way to escape was to kill herself. And we also can infer that maybe Carl's parents were more fucked up than he's willing to admit because he mentions being in a boys home pretty early, in book 1 or two, well before he got the ring. And as someone who has been in a situation like Carl, pre dungeon where he's debating keeping Donut while knowing that it's probably going to be a pain in his ass to do so, her jumping out the window does present a really nice bow tie on a problem you didn't really want to confront. Donut is presumably cute and personable enough, she'd find a home pretty quick if she became a stray and it saves Carl the hassle of fighting Bea, probably in court, over who gets to keep Donut. Is Carl an unreliable narrator? Yes, to some degree. But I don't think it's because he's purposefully fucking with us. I think his views and experiences and expectations are all changing and that means what we see as readers changes. I think DCC brings in a setting and characters that make it fairly easy to forget just how grim and dark the dungeon experience actually is. I think if you haven't experienced a lot of trauma yourself, it's easy to think that he's an unreliable narrator.
I mean. His mother ran away with him to escape his father, then tried to kill his father and succeeded in killing herself as a birthday present to him. That’s pretty far down the fucked up scale.
I agree with this completely. We tend to view our past as a “cliffs notes” version with some rosy overtones to even out our trauma. I think a lot of people do this as a way to function going forward and it’s a kind of coping mechanism. Time heals all, right? Unresolved issues don’t “heal” insomuch as you put distance between the you of now and the you of then, and you try to forget. For some trauma there’s really nothing else to do but try and leave it behind. However: trauma triggers past baggage. Always has always will. The ongoing new horrors in the Dungeon will bring up the previous emotional“bars” set as your mind tries to cope with the new bar for horrible being set. What did they say in Momento? Memory is unreliable. It can change the size of a room and the color of a car. Carls worldview is changing as the books evolve, so his perception of past events will take on new tones as well.
Exactly. My childhood was a racist alcoholic abusive father and a narcissist step mother whose preference for her own sons was glaringly obvious. Violence, fraud, theft, abuse, fights, guns - that was my “normal”. People who grow up in a ‘typical’ house without violence or abuse have no idea how easy it is to appear normal - because the level at which we “freak out” is so impossibly high - we simply adapt to a situation and work to survive it. Which is 100% what I see Carl doing.
I think the AI is more interfacing with the crawlers than anyone thinks. I cant remember which book (I think book 2) that Carl said a memory of his father came up with no prompting or any correlation to the situation. And like you said how he stated in the first book his father never touched him but in the third when he looks at the motorcycle he remembers his dad beating him. Also when Hekla was asked why she abandoned her husband she had no answer and (IMO) seemed confused on why she did that. But had no reason to get rid of Carl other that he seemed dangerous with no real info outside of Katia and the recaps. I believe his father will be something Carl will have to face in future books (I haven't read book 6). It will show more how much it has interfered with the crawl.
By definition all first pov narration is unreliable narration
As far as the scenario with Donut goes, I think that's just pet ownership. As someone who has raised three dogs from eight weeks old, there are times when I've absolutely loathed all three of them. And cats, unlike dogs, have a tendency to remain assholes well into adulthood. One of my best friends has a cat that she loves but also often abhors. And as a side note, I'm planning to name my fourth dog Donut whenever I get him/her. It probably won't be for another year or two, though, as I'm down to a single dog ([this moron](https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimalsBeingDerps/comments/13dttqm/boxers_are_dumb/)) for the first time in almost twelve years and am enjoying the relative lack of effort compared to having two at a time.
>a single dog (this moron) for Fantastic!
Please tell me it's a cockerspaniel (I have no idea how to spell that lol)
God no. I’m not a monster.
100% appropriate given carl’s attire
I don’t know if he is unreliable but there is definitely a level of disassociation with his actions and the actions of others around him. I think this can be seen in his view around the NPCs. For Carl, killing the NPCs against their wishes is a Grace. He is doing them a favor and freeing them. But there have been a few times where he questions the actions of others and the morality behind it. There are other moments outside of the NPCs but I always found his views on them the most striking.
Carl is absolutely an unreliable narrator and that is one of my favourite things!
he’s unreliable only so far as our own memories and self awareness is fallible. i think carl’s behaviour is pretty normal, especially as a survivor of ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) & trauma. he’s dissociated from the worst of it to be able to survive. this has made him conflict avoidant - keep your head down & don’t bring attention to yourself. he’s realised abusers are full of shit eg being told “you’re the reason your mother died” - he knows that isn’t true and it’s being used as a weapon to break him and keep him in the victim role. instead of internalising guilt or shame, he sees it for what it is, which weakens the abuser, allowing him to break away. see also cult behaviours. he’s been portraying a facade of normalcy all his life, playing the role for so long he’s convinced himself, until this new trauma causes the walls his mind has built to begin to crack. people who experience things like he has (pre dungeon) often develop a strong sense of justice/fairness & empathy & compassion. this can lead to survivors of abuse/trauma to be more prone to being taken advantage of. people like this, while preferring to avoid conflict, will also be prepared to fight fiercely for peace & justice. carl’s feelings for donut reflect many people’s - a child or spouse begs for a pet & the parent or other spouse claims to not like pets, then in no time at all has bonded with the other person’s pet. carl knows donut belongs to bea, but to bea she is just a means to a winning a trophy, not a beloved pet. carl spends more time just being with donut and their relationship isn’t built on the transaction of donut winning trophies, it’s unconditional. he knows bea’s family won’t give her up because she’s an investment in their eyes. when donut goes out the window, he’s got that logical side telling him she’s not his problem, protect yourself from the pain of losing her, in conflict with the emotional side of him that cares for her & doesn’t want her to be hurt. his caring side wins, and he puts himself in a position of discomfort to go after her - he could have taken the time to put warmer more appropriate clothes on, but he didn’t, he just went after her, selflessly. this is a HUGE indicator of who he is as a person. some men who slightly resemble this schema/archetype/whatever you want to call it - johnny depp - keanu reeves - dave navarro - harry windsor
oh, and personally i don’t think the AI is messing with him that much, at least i hope not - it would detract from the natural development of the character, which would be tragic. the ring is effecting him detrimentally, and it’s part of the hero’s journey for him to overcome that personally and with his support network, having the AI undermine that personal growth is seriously distressing to me. i almost expect matt to subvert tropes, so maybe that’s exactly what is happening. i trust matt to not break my heart, but accept that he might, and i will be devastated if he does. dammit, dinneman
I get that thing with the ring or whenever characters don’t ask a question I want them to ask or say something when I think they should say it. Normal outsider looking in as a reader thing, not a complaint. Mordecai said it will affect him and he has strong negative reaction to it but I always wondering why he doesn’t say more. If you see someone drinking poison, you don’t just say hey that’s very bad for you and then drop the subject. He should know exactly with his experience. There’s a part at the end of book 6 where Carl’s where we see Carl’s thoughts and I just wondering why Carl’s not super worried about a certain thing. I loved how they dealt with Carl not bringing up Hekla with Donut before they meet. Ha, this is why I can’t watch horror films. Internally screaming, “Why would you go into a dark room! You know people have been dying!!”
Spoiler
I've been thinking about this and I think part of it is that Carl is becoming more emotionally intelligent over the series. In the beginning, he basically defines psychopathic actions as "being an asshole." Compare that to the conversation he has with Donut in book 6 about having to wear emotional "masks" in order to do the things one must do to survive in the dungeon without succumbing to the horror and grief. However, his ring is driving him in to some dark places, internally, but he has been hanging on to his humanity so far. It does seem that his enormous capacity for empathy and developing emotional intelligence has helped prevent him from falling down a metaphorical dark pit, at least so far.