Carl's Doomsday Scenario

Content Warning: This section contains depictions of graphic violence.

“I didn’t like lying or tricking Mordecai. He was as close to a friend as I could get with an alien, and I knew this could irreparably harm that trust and friendship if he ever found out. Furthermore, I didn’t trust Odette. We now owed her, and she potentially held something over us. But I did trust that she wanted us to survive for as long as possible.”

A flashback in the first chapter reveals that Odette forewarned Carl and Donut about making Mordecai their manager, tricking him into believe they have done it on accident for fear of angering him. However, Carl feels immense guilt about this because he does not want to lose Mordecai’s friendship, contributing to the theme of the value of friendship, as well as demonstrating the clash between his pragmatic need for survival and his moral code. This moment highlights the tension between Carl’s survival instinct and his moral compass, directly reinforcing the theme of The Balance Between Survival and Morality.

“The Primals are the progenitors, the first known species to conquer the universe. They are the boogeymen of the cosmos. Nobody knows what they looked like or anything about them other than that they spread across the galaxy, and then one day, they just vanished. There was a great war that spanned all corners of the galaxy. We can see remnants of the battles. If they were fighting a species other than themselves, we don’t know who they were.”

Carl chooses a race called Primals, which comes with several useful skills and benefits while also allowing him to keep his physical appearance the same. As Mordecai explains, because no one knows what the Primals looked like, those who choose that race in the dungeons simply keep their own appearance. This is important to Carl, who does not want to relinquish his connection to his personal identity and humanity.