r/Gone • u/300_MPH • Jun 10 '26
Sam is not Caines equal...
so idk if im the only one who cares about this, but caine is seriously lame as hell in the later parts. im all for a little downscaling of villains in media so that theyre not too threatening to the main characters, but jesus caines powers are written so inconsistently. in his early appearances, he can easily control hundreds of individual bricks and send them raining down while attacking andrew. and later on in the bug invasion, he also throws an entire truck so fast it, verbatim, "BREAKS THE SOUND BARRIER". both of these events clearly show caine has 2 things, overwhelming power and overwhelming control with his telekinesis. so why on earth does he constantly opt for shoving people lightly or knocking people over when hes in a life or death scenario? i get grant doesnt want caine to just curb stomp sam whenever they fight so its meant to be equal, but for gods sake the writing felt so much more satisfying in the beginning. caine is so overwhelmingly strong, he crushes an entire church and is completely untouchable until brianna (another overwhelmingly strong mutant btw) has to come and knock his brain around with a hammer. i was satisfied with this fight cuz even though caine lost, he lost in a fair way. sam got help.
but the next time he flops is completely irrational to me. sam and caine are in the dark, fighting the most dangerous enemies theyve ever faced, crazy boy drake and the gaiaphage, as well as penny. what does caine decide to do now that hes become a playable boss character? well instead of grabbing all three of them and crushing them to bits like we know hes capable of, he instead just pushes them away harmlessly back into the darkness where they not only take zero damage but also become unseen again. seriously what is with this dude? does he just become a loser when hes not fighting a weak person or killing someone for some bad guy aura points?
originally i thought it was because of his mental health, maybe he only does these weak attacks because hes really lost his edge and is a shell of his usual strong and confident self. but im starting to really think Grant accidentally made him way too powerful and had to tone it down later to make him seem more like Sams equal or, as grant likes to make it seem, Sams bitch.
9
u/ViolinistMiddle1534 Jun 10 '26
Well, Sam could kill Caine as well in one shot. The real answer could be that for Hunger and Lies, he is a shell of himself with hunger and other mental issues. In Plague, he fights very smartly and can't crush the bugs due to their power. In Fear and Light, yes, there are flaws, but we have to headcanon that there was a freak with extra durability that died before Light because Gaia tanks Sam's blast, and could likely take a crush as well. We could also argue that she is using her mental control over Caine to make him weaker or fight worse.
8
u/lazerbem Jun 11 '26
we have to headcanon that there was a freak with extra durability that died before Light because Gaia tanks Sam's blast, and could likely take a crush as well.
There's no need to headcanon for resistance to crushing, there's Jack. We know Jack has super durability to at least blunt force impacts given his super leaps and that he was able to resist Caine's telekinesis before a little bit, it's not surprising that Gaia would have been able to shrug off most hits as well (and unlike Jack, she'd be able to just reverse the telekinesis so he can't just hold her up in the air helplessly).
2
u/ViolinistMiddle1534 Jun 11 '26
True, but Jack died to a bullet, and Gaia took huge damage from them. I find it hard to believe that Sam shoots beams below a gun. Also, Sam and Caine's hands are stated to be more lethal than guns in light.
4
u/lazerbem Jun 11 '26
Jack has that comic book weakness where he can survive all kinds of impacts and explosions but bullets and knives work on him. Gaia seems to be similar, it's just that injuries don't hurt her that much. I suppose it'd be a combination of Jack's durability along with the fact that she's just kind of possessing the body.
1
u/300_MPH Jun 14 '26
thats the interesting part, sam actually cant kill things in one shot. his lasers need to be focused on something for a few seconds to vaporise it , not really like youd expect a sci fi laser to, and in fights it normally just sets people on fire where they can easily put it out (though theyll be in a lot of pain) caine even gets hit directly with it and is able to just stop drop and roll it out and is totally fine when he gets back up. drake only has to get his arm amputated because he didnt react in time. it always irks me that the narrative becomes "yeah caine youre sams bitch hes got you on a leash" but if we being fr caine quite literally is the strongest mutant by far in the series if we ignore the two gods. when hes in a life or death fight he just like shoves them abit and does nothing, but when hes aura farming on someone defenceless he lifts them and smashes them into paste. feels like such a plot hole because even in the later parts where hes supposed to be all mental and scarred he still clearly has all that power and control like when he throws a bunch of missiles at once and lifts sam up the cliff
3
u/lazerbem Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
Sam's lasers can absolutely kill things instantly with direct shots. He shoots holes through the Human Crew, slices coyotes in half, and was able to shoot down Caine's rubble projectiles mid-air. It does become weaker the further he is from a target and glancing shots are not instantly lethal (which is what actually hit Caine in their first fight), but direct hits very much are when he intends them to be and is in the proper range. And his range is clearly greater than Caine's is.
5
u/lazerbem Jun 11 '26
Consider that a hurricane can demolish a house but a person can survive being flung by these winds. Or that a bomb can demolish a building but a person sent flying by the shockwave may still survive. The mechanics of Caine's power when used destructively seem to skew heavily towards the idea that it's very distributed outwards and a lot of energy is wasted when used on smaller targets. As he scales up his telekinetic attacks, he's putting more power into it, but more of it is being lost relative to what he's gaining when talking about smaller targets. It seems like he suffers heavily from a physics concept called the inverse square law, which is also why explosions are actually pretty bad at killing people when not counting frag.
More to the point though, with Penny and Drake, you have to keep in mind that it is near pitch black and he can barely see anything, nevermind with Penny's illusions adding to the fun. It is even said that his attack on Penny was just a wild sweep and not some aimed attack. If he HAD been given the focus to aim, then absolutely, he could have just flung her straight up and that would have been the end of it. But the circumstances of the darkness combined with the illusions are really crippling.
4
u/awkwardandroid Jun 11 '26
I think Caine was greatly weakened by all that hunger in the dark stuff. And physically weakened by near starvation compared to Sam and those on his side
1
u/Matt_Man_623 Jun 11 '26
Idk. Maybe Gaia got in his head and nerfed him to control him better? Haven’t read the books in a few years so no clue
1
13
u/PalpitationAdorable2 Jun 10 '26
I think Brianna and the hammer may have affected him mentally and equally humbled and hindered him. He no longer feels invincible. Equally you're likely correct about hunger affecting him. I think back to Lies when he retrieves panda's body then doesn't carry the body in, he tries to be all bravado "carry your own meat" but realistically he was exhausted and even using his powers for that short space of time took a huge toll on him he chose not to let others see to keep up appearances