Motif · from book 1
Carl's family
'After a stint in the US Coast Guard, I ended up working as a marine tech.' What Carl says of himself in the first chapter, and what leaks out after: a mother who locked him in the basement with his father's Frogger machine whenever his father's friends came over, and who left; a heavily tattooed father who laughed at him, broke his slingshot and never replaced it, and drove on past a wrecked moving truck saying it was a shame.
First appears: Book 1
Series arc
Through book 2
The circus on his fourth birthday, when his mother had briefly left his father for her parents' place in southern Texas — a memory recovered from a shoebox of photographs under his parents' bed (B2 ch. 10); his father's shelf of westerns, read in secret (B2 ch. 5).
Through book 1
What Carl says of himself in the first chapter and in three asides — the basement and the Frogger machine (B1 ch. 6), the moving truck his father drove past (B1 ch. 26), the slingshot his father broke (B1 ch. 32): 'After a stint in the US Coast Guard, I ended up working as a marine tech' (B1 ch. 1); a coast guardsman aboard a cutter as a technician, never face-to-face with real law enforcement and not in a physical fight in years (B1 ch. 2); Bea's father a lawyer out of Yakima (B1 ch. 8).
Where they appear
| Book | Chapters they are in (of the book's) | Where |
|---|---|---|
| 1 — Dungeon Crawler Carl | 7/48 | Ch. 2, Ch. 3, Ch. 6, Ch. 26, Ch. 32, Ch. 41, Ch. 42 · the book's own page |
| 2 — Carl's Doomsday Scenario | 12/26 | 4–12, 17, 19, 23 · the book's own page |
By book
Carl's family in book 1 — Dungeon Crawler Carl
'After a stint in the US Coast Guard, I ended up working as a marine tech' (ch. 1); a coast guardsman aboard a cutter as a technician, never face-to-face with real law enforcement but trained in hand-to-hand combat (ch. 2); Bea's dad a lawyer out of Yakima (ch. 8). Of his parents: a mother who locked him in the basement with his father's Frogger cabinet while his father's friends drank (ch. 6); a mother who left, and a father last seen laughing at him over 12 years ago — 'Not since he'd abandoned me that day' (ch. 13, ch. 21); a father who drove on past a wrecked Penske truck (ch. 26); his mother's promise the day she left that it would be okay — 'It had been a lie then' (ch. 41). What Carl says of himself, and no more.
Carl's family in book 2 — Carl's Doomsday Scenario
The circus on his fourth birthday, when his mother had briefly left his father and run to her parents' in southern Texas — peanuts and cotton candy and hay, a memory recovered years later from a shoebox of photographs hidden under his parents' bed (ch. 10); a father with a shelf of Louis L'Amour westerns Carl read in secret (ch. 5).