Caine Soren is a major antagonist in the Gone series. He serves as the main villain in Gone, a secondary villain in Hunger and Lies, and an antihero in Plague, Fear and Light. He is also the fraternal twin brother of the story's main protagonist, Sam Temple.
When a supernatural event known as the FAYZ caused everyone in Perdido Beach over 15 to suddenly vanish, Caine saw it as an opportunity to take over the town. With the use of his charisma and telekinetic powers received shortly before the event, he became the town's tyrannical new dictator. Even after his dethroning, he continued to be a threat, while on occasion being an ally.
Moral Ranking[]
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
In General[]
- Despite the high heinous standards of the Gone series, Caine still stands out as he used his resources to facilitate many of the horrific events committed by other characters in the earlier books. This includes the Thanksgiving battle, the nuclear power plant battle, the Perdido Beach fire, and the psychological torture of Cigar.
- With the exception of Diana (and Jack to a lesser extent), he doesn’t care about any of the Coates kids and sees no problem throwing them under the bus if it suits him.
- Although he had a connection to the Gaiaphage due to being Taegan Smith’s son (the man who’s DNA spawned it), something that Connie Temple believed made him evil from birth, this doesn’t give him moral agency issues as it’s revealed Sam Temple was also Taegan’s son, and he was a good person.
Background[]
- He frequently abused his telekinetic powers at school, in one instance hospitalizing a teacher that Diana Lardis (a girl he was interested in) didn't like.
Gone[]
- He betrayed his friends with powers by getting his sadistic right-hand man, Drake Merwin, to brutally immobilize them in their sleep and encase their hands in concrete.
- As mayor of Perdido Beach, he enforced strict rules on the town, some only there to strengthen his control. This led to the death of Bette after she was beaten by Orc and his goons for breaking one of the rules.
- Upon discovering that they're siblings, he tortured Sam for information.
- He led a group of intelligent coyotes against Sam's forces in the Thanksgiving battle, taking a daycare hostage in the process. A total of 15 children died in the conflict. Even after believing he killed Sam, he showed no care in calling off the coyotes to stop them from eating the hostages, claiming he didn’t control them.
Hunger[]
- He attacked the Perdido Beach nuclear power plant to retrieve uranium for the Gaiaphage. This caused more people to die and get injured, along with the power in Perdido Beach to be shut down.
- While he had moral agency issues during this period as he was controlled by the Gaiaphage, he holds at least some responsibility over what happened as he only lost control because he originally was seeking out the Gaiaphage for more power.
Lies[]
- He gave Zil the idea of setting a fire in Perdido Beach and taking control in the chaos, all so Caine and his cronies can steal a boat and escape to an island resort. This likely killed a lot of people.
- He left multiple of his fellow Coates kids to die on the boat they used to get to the island resort, only taking a select few with him.
- He attempted to murder Sanjit and his siblings after they sedated him to escape the island they were on, only stopping because Diana forced him to.
Plague[]
- He savagely executed the Human Crew member, Lance. While he deserved it, this was after Caine had already promised to let him live.
- He diplomatically took over Perdido Beach while it was at its weakest, declaring himself as its new king. While he did give everyone the choice to stay under his rule or leave with Sam to live at Lake Tramonto, this was out of pure pragmatism as he had learned from his mistakes of being too tyrannical in the past.
Fear[]
- He sentenced Cigar to a day of mental torture from Penny after Cigar drunkenly killed someone. Penny ended up taking it too far and drove him to insanity while also forcing him to cut out his own eyes.
- Although he became meek and insecure after being humiliated and psychologically tortured by Penny, no longer holding onto the egotism he held before, this came from a place of self-preservation instead of a desire to actually be better.
Light[]
- He gets into a fight with Sam when his rule over Perdido Beach is challenged even slightly, only relenting when Edilio threatens to castrate him with a shotgun.
- He taunts Sam over the fact that they’d likely both be going to prison if they ever escaped the FAYZ despite Sam being a hero.
- While he sacrificed himself to stop the Gaiaphage, he didn’t feel remorse for his past crimes and only did it for revenge as well as to fulfil his desire to die in a blaze of glory, making it a faux redemption.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- There are points in the story where he is portrayed sympathetically.
- He grew up with neglectful and unloving foster parents in what appeared to be a very uncaring environment. It was shown in a flashback that they had him spend time with business associate’s daughter who would try blackmailing him into being romantically involved with her through their family connections.
- He found out later that his biological mother adopted him out to said parents while keeping Sam, adding to his insecurities. When the Gaiaphage appears to him in his mother’s form, he gets upset and questions why she left him.
- He is mind-raped by the Gaiaphage for multiple weeks, going completely insane and later spending several months comatose. He is left so broken by this that he briefly allies with Sam to get back at the Gaiaphage.
- His torture and humiliation at the hands of Penny, while cathartic to an extent considering his past crimes, is also treated as excessively cruel, even for someone like him.
- His death is played for sympathy as characters like Diana mourn him and in his final moments he reflects on his life, eventually reminiscing on a pleasant memory he had of her.
- There are multiple people he genuinely has care/respect for:
- While the two have a toxic relationship, he deeply loved his girlfriend, Diana, and has actively gone out of his way to protect her on multiple occasions. He also felt remorse for his treatment of her in his final moments, apologising in a letter he leaves her.
- He respected Albert Hillsborough, with him being one of the few people he talked openly in front of. He was later disheartened when the Albert abandoned Perdido Beach.
- Despite kidnapping and using him, he had a genuine appreciation for Computer Jack, telling him not to "sell himself short" when they filmed one of their classmates vanishing after turning 15.
- He has a Pet the Dog moment where he tells Duck Zhang to leave the Gaiaphage's mineshaft while he has the chance despite him still potentially being of use.
- He has standards against cannibalism, rape and certain levels of torture.
- While starving, he was hesitant to eat Panda’s corpse after his suicide, being haunted after going through with it.
- He notes how easy it would be to force Diana to have sex with him while they were on Sanjit’s island, but believes such an act is below him.
- Despite being the one to condemn Cigar to be mentally tortured by Penny, he was genuinely horrified upon seeing that she went as far as having him cut out his own eyes.
- He is on and off, sometimes siding with his brother against greater threats like the Gaiaphage.
- While his sacrifice in the final book wasn’t a full redemption, he still forfeited his life to finish off the Gaiaphage and Astrid Elison even found it ironic that a person as evil as him would die in such a heroic way.
- Before his death, he left letters taking full responsibility for all the wrongdoings in the FAYZ despite some of them not even being his fault. This protected many children from incrimination after the FAYZ ended, including his brother Sam.
Trivia[]
- Caine Soren is, alongside Mary Terrafino, one of the two characters in the Gone series to be Inconsistently Heinous.