Still Not Over that Kai guy
okay this is a tough one but here’s my opinion =0
Kai was a chemical machine. Just as Prince described him in series 3. However upon regaining his ‘memories’ he now had a moral basis.
The first people he meets upon regaining his memories are 2 misfits and lost souls that risked their own lives to save his existance. Now as a moral machine Kai had 2 options:
Accompany Stan and Zev
Or fly off into a black hole
Kai from viewing his old memories knew he would like to return the favor. But at this point in the movies Kai says again and again he has no future and is simply around to find THEM a home. Sorta a last redemption.
However, at the end of Gigashadow Kai now has a new supply of protoblood, and both Kai and Zev have proven themselves to be heroes and helped Kai destroy the divine order. So Kai ends this by saying lets find US a home. It was at this point Kai realized the remainder of his existance would be spent with these 2. And that decision once made would be near impossible for a machine to renege on.
Kai however over the course of time began to empathize with BOTH Stan and Kai. This begins in “Stans Trial” Stanley goes on trial for crimes he really wasent responsible for by a people so lost they simply want more death on top of the ones they’ve already suffered. I immediatly noticed in this episode (Before seeing Brigadoom) that Kai had without a doubt been tried for a crime before himself.
When he describes Stanley as a “Tainted Hero”, he is clearly speaking from experience.
This episode began the long process for Kai of empathizing with the crew. This culminated in the fight against Mantrid where Kai with some struggle refers to Stan and Xev as “My friends”. From this moment on Kai continues to refer to them as his friends through series 3 and 4. Before that Kai never does.
Xev/Zevs relationship with Kai are two different things.
Kai truly cared about Zev, much more than Xev. Zev was much more dependant on him. He saw her as something to be pitied. A suicidal girl that had been imprisoned and deprived her entire life of life itself. Kai could relate to that. Kai was now what Zev had been her whole life. And then that life was cut short in Terminal, where Kai’s voice actually breaks upon saying “I am taking Zev home”.
When Xev was born Kai claims that its good or nice to see her again. This coupled with his clear emotions on her death show that he’s not entirely honest/knowledgable about his own situation in death. But not being able to ‘feel’ his life when he was alive yet still able to access all his memories make it impossible to have any basis to go on when experiencing these things.
As the series went on with Xev, Kai grew more distant from her and more confindent in her ability to handle herself. This culminates in the Vlad arc when Kai explains that Xev is powerful in many ways. At the end of the arc, Kai sacrifices himself to save Stanley in which Vlad questions Kai on why he cares about Stan. Kai immediatly claims he does not care and changes the subject showing a lack of comfort on the topic.
I think what Kai meant at the end of the series is exactly in his words:
Im sorry I could not love you in the way you wished.
This could mean physical love.
It could also mean reborn Kai still loves the gal from Brigadoom.
But I think Kai ran out of time. He did not have the time to work out who he loved and who he didnt. Put yourself in his shoes. You’ve just regained all your emotions from over 6000 years ago and you still got a world to save and a dead girlfriend you’ve never mourned. Makes the statement make a lot more sense imo.
As for Tina, its the same emotions he felt for Zev and Stan back in the beginning, its about doing whats morally right. And at that point Kai had already regained some of his soul and could truly ‘feel’ for their situation. As a partially living Kai Im sure he felt some guilt over this poor girl that he didnt know how to react to just weeks earlier and now she’s dead. Had he been alive then he would’ve seen through Longbores plot. As Kai says “The dead are easily fooled” =)
Just my thoughts on the subject though Ive left about 300 pages out =) It is a whopper to think about.