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Kayne is an antagonist and the Nyarlathotep of this reality.
Personality[]
Enigmatic, manic, capricious, and unpredictable. Kayne is spontaneous, evidenced when he appears to make up the name Kayne on the spot. He enjoys making deals and uses subtler means of manipulation such as lures.[1]
Kayne enjoys dramatics. He speaks with a dramatic tone, shifting it to mock Arthur and John as he speaks. He adapts accents, gives out condescending nicknames, and adds sound effects to his motions.[1]
Kayne is easily distracted. He can show impatience, but is also shown to be be entertained by situations that he himself cannot understand.[1]
Description[]
Kayne wears a black suit and no shoes. During his first encounter with Arthur and John, his hands and feet are stained red with blood.[1]
History[]
At some point, Kayne meets The King In Yellow and becomes familiar with many of his versions. He also becomes acquainted with an entity named Lillith, whom he refers to as a "bitch."[1]
Season Two[]
Arthur and John first encounter Kayne in the Dreamlands. After destroying a city in the Dreamlands, Kayne walks up the steps of a destroyed amphitheater with bare bloodied feet, leaving red footprints leading up the stairs to the center of the amphitheater. He sits, wearing an all-black suit, playing Faroe's Lullaby on the piano while Arthur and John approach.
While Kayne refuses to answer Arthur's questions, John confirms that he does not recognize Kayne and that Kayne is not human. Kayne shushes John, confirming he can hear John. After implying that he was the reason the city was destroyed, Kayne handles Faroe's music box with bloodied hands, getting blood on the box. Kayne confirms he made the music box and has "hundreds of them" as they are a lure. The reason he lures Arthur and John is to meet Arthur and find out what makes him so special.
When Arthur's answer does not satisfy Kayne, he dismisses them, but Arthur wants to know if Kayne has more answers. Kayne says he knows the King will win because John will sacrifice himself for Arthur. Arthur and John plead with Kayne to help them. Kayne refuses, but says he'll place a wager on them. He gives Arthur a dagger and tells him to use it when the time is right and that if he doesn't know, he can always flip a coin. He sings a song to prove he knows everything in Arthur's bag, but notably does not mention the lighter. He then disappears.[1]
Season Three[]
Immediately after the King transports Arthur to Addison, Arthur flips the coin and calls on Kayne. After Kayne makes fun of Arthur's situation, he agrees to put John back in Arthur's head, but with the catch that John will remember nothing of their time together. After pressuring Arthur into making a decision, Kayne leaves, putting Yellow in Arthur's head.[2]
Kayne appears while John attempts to save Arthur in the coal mines, chewing on something crunchy. John calls out to him, frustrated, but Kayne does not help. Instead, he mocks and taunts John as John attempts to sew Arthur up. When John asks Kayne to help him, Kayne exclaims that that wasn't the deal, implying that there is an ongoing deal between the two of them. From what Kayne and John say, it is clear that John is supposed to get Arthur to New York and to a specific place of Kayne's choosing. After some back-and-forth, John tells Kayne to shut up if he won't help, and Kayne does, making noises while John finishes sewing Arthur up. When John shows discouragement, Kayne calls him undefeated, which John does not agree with. After some more allusions are made to the deal, Kayne leaves as Arthur wakes up.[3]
Season Four[]
At the Red Hook Grain Terminal, just as Arthur touches the Graystone, Kayne freezes everyone in the room except for John. He taunts John again regarding their deal, and reveals that when John was reunited with the King, the King cast him into The Dark World. In the Dark World, John begged Kayne for help, and in exchange, Kayne had John "do things" for him, but does not specify what. Having revealed John's lies, Kayne informs him that Arthur could hear the conversation, and unfreezes the room. The Butcher attempts to threaten Kayne, and in response, Kayne blows his head up, the same as he did to Matthew. Larson asks Kayne if he is Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, spawn of Azathoth, the creature of a thousand folds, to which Kayne dismisses him, annoyed. He berates Larson for being boring and lesser than Arthur, before causing his eyes to burst out of his skull and sending him and Yellow to the Dreamlands. He sends Detective Noel away to "maybe Spain". He offers Arthur a chance at answers, extending a bloodstained hand out to him, and disappears with Arthur.[4]
Season Five[]
Kayne reveals that he wants the Blackstone, which was once sought after unsuccessfully by The Three Soldiers, but is unable to see it or obtain it himself. Some people are able to see the Blackstone when they touch the Graystone, including a "shit-kicker kid", but he gives very little details about this incident. He explains that gods, or Great Old Ones, have pieces of themselves in every timeline, but their "soul" is housed elsewhere. This protects them, but prevents them from being able to manipulate every timeline at once, being limited to one at a time. Shub-Niggurath was successfully summoned by a cult under the direction of Antoine to give her the power to manipulate all of reality, but when Henry MacFarland, Frank Underhill, and a third, unnamed character intervened, Shub-Niggurath was erased from all worlds, with Arthur's world being the only one to retain a shadow of her existence.[5]
Kayne reveals that when he touched the Graystone, he learned how to move between universes at will. He was the Nyarlathotep of Arthur's universe, but has killed every other version of Nyarlathotep, and become Kayne. He shows Arthur several other timelines of Arthur's life, and in one of them, turning off the bath for Faroe. He also mentions he has a daughter who would "love" Arthur. He gives Arthur the task of finding the Blackstone. If he succeeds, Kayne says they can have their own bodies, and Arthur could even have Faroe back. If they don't, Kayne promises to torture every version of everyone Arthur has loved, Arthur, and John "until the last light of the dying sun". He offers John a deal: to erase Arthur's memory of John's confessions about his previous deal with Kayne. When John accepts, Kayne refuses, and sends Arthur and John to 13th century England.[5]
Known Abilities[]
Kayne has killed several victims by blowing up their heads.
Reality Warping[]
Kayne demonstrates that he has the ability to affect and change aspects of reality including physical matter, laws of nature, entities and gods, timelines, and abstract ideas.
Examples of Kayne's reality warping:
- Space-Time Manipulation - Views and experiences different timelines at will, including Arthur's entire life[1][5]; appears and disappears at will.[2] He is able to move other people through space and time as well.[4][5]
- Biological Manipulation - Heals Arthur's wounds.[2][3] He can also prevent people from moving at will.[4]
- Power Over Arcane Entities - Places the entity known as Yellow in Arthur's head, and pulls John from the Dark World.[2][4]
- Metatextual Awareness - Breaks the 4th wall and is aware of the audience and the episode names.[2][5]
Omnificence[]
While the umbrella of reality warping, Kayne especially uses powers of omnificence: the power to create anything without limit. Kayne's omnificence is likely partial, rather than full omnificence, as he relies on John to follow through on a deal. Examples of Kayne's omnificence include:
- Object Manifestation - Creates or summons mundane objects such as chairs, music boxes, and the dagger. It is unknown if the dagger has any magical properties.[1]
- Object Replication - Creates hundreds of duplicates of Faroe's music box.[1]
Limits[]
There is one known limit to Kayne's power: The Blackstone. For some reason, Kayne is unable to "see" it.[5]
Trivia[]
- The snack Kayne is eating in Part 28 is Gardettos.[6]
- In Intermezzo Kayne states that Shub-Niggurath is his "cousin, maybe, on dad's side for sure".
- The character is named Kayne because Kayne is Harlan's middle name.[7]