Is Carl the New Dungeon Boss?

With the main dungeon boss defeated, does that make Carl the new monster of the dungeon?  Mike and Corbett talk about just how "monstrous" Carl has become over the course of the books.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Mongo is appalled. Welcome to Mongo as a Paul. I am Corbett, and I am readily appalled today because I have come up with a s really crazy idea. But I'm gonna make Mike appalled now.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Well, I'm appealed. We'll we'll see how see how close to appalled I get as the show goes on.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

So Mike, I have I had a thought. I had a minor thought. About minors? But it it kind of No, it's not. It's about Carl. It's about our old buddy Carl and his famous mantra, the mantra that pretty much makes the first book that has sucked everybody in and is actually embedded on the uh or the cover under the jacket, which by the way, secrets for anybody who doesn't know this. If you have the hardback books and you open up the jacket cover, there is a secret message on the front cover, which is always funny because my brother-in-law will take the jackets off so that way he doesn't damage them while he's traveling back and forth to work. And there's some really funny cover jacket messages. Anyway, secret stuff, guys, secret stuff. If you just oh, you know, look. But you will not break me is Carl's mantra. He says it over and over again and constantly, and he does it right away, like I think within the first few chapters. And if by the end, he's done it a couple times. It's a defiant statement, it's strong, it definitely pulls you into the book, no doubt. But uh, I had a thought about the fact that the AI's job is to generate, well, action, adventure, and excitement for the TV audience. I'm wondering, I'm this is just a throw out to Mike to see what he's thinking about, but has the AI put Carl in a situation that's making him the best monster of the dungeon? I mean, literally at the end of the last book, we we've pretty much removed the actual monster of the dungeon that everybody's afraid of.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

So sexy, sexy scallopendra.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

So, because of this creation, and we've talked about this too, Mike, where the possibility that the AI might have handpicked Carl before the whole thing started. Because why would one portal appear right in front of Carl and Donut? Two people right on the street, yeah. For for two people, yeah, seems pretty unlikely.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Well, not to mention there's the whole thing of what did Donut see to get her to leap out to the tree, which is extremely out of character for her.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

That's true, and she's never done. Yeah. That was the other thing he mentions way back in the first book, is like she's she's always gone to the window.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Right, but she's never tried to leap over or get out except this one time, which then required Carl to go out just in time.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

At the exact moment.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Yeah. I I do think we're gonna find, and again, all my predictions have been blown out of the water, or at least most of them, but I'm gonna soldier on and I'm gonna say we're gonna find out that that somehow the AI picked Carl because of hoping. Because I refuse to believe that the AI didn't know about the Dungeon Anarchist cookbook, and having to happen, it would be right there in the wheel. So I I think that, but as far as him being a monster, it's one of those things like evil. Well, sometimes it's obvious if you're a thinking civilized being, but then there are other times of well, monsters are usually the people on the other side.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

True. The thing you have to hate.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

If you're the syndicate, hell yes, Carl's a monster. If you're the rich jerks, either playing the Celestial Ascension or in the Sculpender Club, yeah, yeah, Carl's a monster.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Well, I think uh the opinion of the hunters on the sixth floor would be would be that sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

A guy says, I'm gonna kill every single one, not one of you is going to escape no matter what. That's kind of a monstery thing to say. A little bit. And I think it's brought a caught that hunter with the attack weasels without a mouth.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

You know, who spoke in sign language, you know, he made it at the butcher's masquerade. He made it very clear, what am I doing here? I'm trying to earn money to keep my people alive. That's it. I have no ill will to any of you. Yet Carl killed him to fulfill that oath.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

In a pretty Well, no, his was a a relatively immediate and painless death. I'll give him that compared to a lot of the others.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

True, true. But again, didn't spare him.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Yeah, well, I think the one that was probably one of the harshest ones was the uh the guy who got kicked out of the safe room at the time and and appeared right in front of Carl. Oh like right by Carl, the one with the nipple rings. Oh, yeah. Uh can't remember his name.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Yeah, I forgot his name too, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

I mean, he was just like I slowly, slowly, slowly trying to not want to kill him, and then he kills him real bad.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Yeah. Of course, that also sort of plays into, you know, by Bedlam Bride. You know, even Louis is thinking Carl is one bad decision from becoming a psychopath.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

If I was gonna push it to Carl potentially being the monster, I I would point Gate of the Viral Gods when he fights um and now I'm blanking on his name, the guy with the the robe. The robe the the the one who shoots the he the one who's trying to kill the dog at the end. Um when Kwan C H shows up and he fights him hand to hand and is like yelling. Yeah, well when he's fighting with him and he's yelling out, you're a bully, you're a bully, and nobody likes you. And you can tell he's obviously yelling about his father, potentially his father. I uh a part of me felt like he was almost yelling at himself, but I don't I don't see him as a bully, so I don't know I don't believe that, but but the thing is he's he's yelling at him, not paying attention, and rips the guy's freaking arm off without realizing he did it.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Yeah, although I guess it was did he rip it off or was he just holding on to it and Quan just desperate to get away, flies off and it rips that way.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Possibly. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

On the other hand, it's kind of tomato tomato, because he certainly didn't have a problem with it. And what's the first thing he did? Put it in his inventory.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Who does that?

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Actually was holding it subconsciously for a long time, wasn't he? Just standing on the water.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

That I don't remember he made it.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Still holding the arm. What the hell?

SPEAKER_01 6:51

So yeah, Kwan certainly thought he was a monster. One could argue killing all the hunters, whether or not they even had a choice to be there. I mean, yes, plenty of them deserved it, but every single one, maybe not.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

That was the one thing that was their mistake every time. Every as far as the hunters are concerned. He would feel sorry for them. Feel because I remember the uh oh, Hunter, future hunter. Oh, the orc girl. I will not forget that name. The orc girl, yeah. No, that was her name, future hunter. Here lies future hunter who was hunter, the former hunter who was the future hunter. Hunting the future? What what is she doing? Yeah, he really felt sympathy for her up until she mentioned and and almost every single hunter does the same mistake. He's like, Well, you can't kill me. We're real, we're real real. We're real, you're not, and then he immediately shifts.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Yeah. Not only am I gonna kill you, I'm gonna use I'm gonna mark you with that damn ring. Which also is pretty monstrous.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

That ring. I I will say uh Frank Q, or no, uh Frank Q. Definitely set him up. He even told him, like, this is this is gonna be a terrible thing to give you. And it's like, no, it seems like a great thing to give me.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

And yeah, and it's gonna kill it's gonna ruin you, and you won't say no to it because it's so useful.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Yeah, he did destroy it though. Well, donut destroyed it.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

But again, he he struggled with it, and I think in the end, if the person that finally convinced him was Donut, I don't think he was listening to anyone else really. He'd be like, Yeah, okay, this thing is bad, but it's so useful, and I can quit anytime I want. He didn't say that, but that was kind of the implication.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Yeah, it's it it definitely was a smoker's habit going which I will admit after uh after um No man, um is every book blanking on me today?

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Yeah, that's one of the problems with recording in the mornings.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Yeah, yeah. But a book five's masquerade. After the butcher's masquerade, you you really get more of a picture of him using it more often and so casual. Yeah. I think that was the thing, is he used it so friggin' awesome. I am um honestly surprised he wasn't the one using it at the end of Inevitable Ruin. The way that Lee Na used it was I mean, well, she was she used it in the way that he probably would have used it had he had the opportunity to think about it. And which is good. He got to see like the worst possible scenario of her dealing with it.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

I think I've got this under control, but look at Lee Na, who has relatively little emotion, and yet she's just unemotionally murdering vast quantities of people, and then she got stuck and unable to heal.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

I wonder if that's a racial thing with her.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Could be. She is a demon.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

She is a demon, after all. Well, she is a demon, but she's also a little bit of a sociopath.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Yeah, I mean, you get the feeling that maybe the demon choosing the demon influenced her a bit, but she was always kind of a so I think you're right. I think she was always a sociopath to a degree, and maybe that's why she chose the demon.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Maybe. That's another show.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Yeah. It was another subject, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

And different, different type of monster. Right. Do you think that Carl is now, especially at the end of the uh Parade of Horribles, Skelapendra's totally out of the picture? All Carl has to do is get to the level 18 and walk out the door.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

So maybe make out with a caterpillar.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Like we will all don't want to do that. Uh but no, he is Carl taking the place of Skelopendra because the the AI designed him. Every single person in the universe is in oh, the the the god fight, and they're all going to be going after him. I mean, they might go after each other, but I have a feeling they're all just gonna team up. It's Carl versus every single one.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

I think it's going to be a lot like faction wars, where initially they were all supposedly allied against Carl and the crawlers, but they can't help themselves. They're narcissistic, egocentric, treacherous asshats that will stab each other. Yeah, and that's the thing, you know, the Carl crawlers for all their problems, they generally trust each other not to stab each other in the back. That will never happen. It never happened with faction wars, and it won't happen, I think, in the celestial ascension. I think in the end, most of them will end up stabbing each other as opportunities. But yeah, I think at this point, Carl is the second biggest monster in the dungeon right now, as far as certainly those people are concerned. The biggest is the AI. I think after Parade of Horribles, that's the biggest monster everyone is scared of. But on the like you pointed out, you know, is Carl's just a minion of the AI as far as they're concerned. Probably.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

But again, yeah, it's a matter of perception. He's a hero to crawlers and to some, at least I think some of the NPCs.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

It's a lot to chew on. And uh that's kind of the beauty of the books, though.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Right. And the last thing I want to mention is that remember in the first book when he killed the hoarder and he was so scarred and horrified by it? Do you think Carl now would blink twice if that's what he needed to do to keep people alive or keep him and donut alive? Yeah. I don't think he would. I I think he would not he might feel a faint regret later on, but at the time, no, I think he'd just do it. So is that a monster? Maybe. Probably.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

He's heading that way. I I think it's just a matter of will he break or will he not break? And that's probably what everybody's waiting to see.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Yeah. Will he sacrifice himself to keep the celestial ascension from completing while everyone else escapes?

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Well, not to set you up for this, but we all have our limitations, Mike.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

And they will not break psychopaths like us.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Until next time. Chitty bye. Thank you.