Kalim’s Obliviousness

Kalim says that he might be pretty gullible, while other characters say he is oblivious, thoughtless and completely lacking in self-awareness.

Kalim says that that means whenever he’s feeling down a little food, rest and dancing are all he needs to “purge whatever’s bugging me from my mind.”

We get multiple examples of Kalim not knowing what is going on, including: not realizing that Cater does not have any interest in connecting with people from his past being unable to detect Jamil’s sarcasm and misinterpreting Ruggie’s efforts to haggle as a joke.

Kalim also assumes that hyaenas and wolves are “close enough” to being the same animal (to Ruggie’s annoyance), orders the wrong quantity of the wrong item for the school store, tells an opposing team member information about his teammates during Beanfest, leaves Scarabia first-years alone on their first day at school and cannot figure out how to work a pepper mill.

In a vignette Silver confides to Kalim that he is worried about an argument he had with Sebek: Sebek insists upon accompanying Malleus every moment of every day, in and out of class to wherever he goes, while Silver thinks that Malleus deserves some time to himself.

Kalim interprets this as, “What’s wrong with them going to class together?” And “You were in a fight about whether you should hang out at school or not!”

Kalim says that he would feel lonely if he were Malleus and Silver didn’t want to go to class with him anymore, as If Jamil told me that we couldn’t walk to class together, I think I’d have a meltdown.”

Kalim says Jamil is like a brother to him, but when he discovers that he doesn’t have a textbook he needs he says, “This is so weird. Jamil never makes mistakes.”, explaining to Silver that Jamil is on top of everything including his personal matters in addition to his duties as vice housewarden. Silver thanks Kalim for making him see that being overprotective must be avoided at all costs.

Kalim is confused by Trey’s reasoning for joining the Culinary Crucible, says he thinks that “beating an egg” means “punching it” and struggles with his dish in the event so much that it is inedible (even for Ruggie, who has repeatedly said that he will eat anything that isn’t rotten).

We also see Kalim leave the leadership of Scarabia’s new students entirely to Jamil, following up Jamil’s explanations with “Now go and do what he said!” When Kalim finds hourglasses that are meant to help with getting good grades and improved focus, Jamil silents reflects that he should gift both of them to Kalim.

Kalim gets spooked in the school’s courtyard by both Rook and Floyd. Kalim seems to be aware of his obliviousness to some degree, telling Leona that his head “can’t beat Malleus’” and repeatedly acknowledging that he is not able to express himself as clearly as he wishes he could.

There are two instances where it is insinuated that Kalim may not be as oblivious as he seems:

1) in Trey’s PE vignette he derails a conversation about his magic carpet to make it about Trey, asking—entirely unprovoked—if Riddle is not appreciating Trey enough. Trey responds, “Wow…that was either really thick of you or…incredibly perceptive.”

2) During New Year’s Kalim forces an unwanted “lucky lions paw” decoration onto Leona, who then receives an expensive tablet in his lucky bag. The end result is a surge of demand for the lions paw decorations, which Kalim had bought 100 of by accident and had been instructed by Sam to sell instead of buying them himself.

Leona reflects, “There’s no way sunshine-for-brains set it up on purpose…”

Kalim asks the prefect to listen to his troubles only to say, “never mind, my life is great! Ha ha!,” and says he’d like them to learn about him.