| “ |
Kidnap? Je n'oserais jamais![1] |
” |
| —"The Cat's Car" | ||
Samantha, more commonly known as The Cat, is a traveling con artist and self-proclaimed entrepreneur. She is able to travel across the train cars in her personal shuttlecraft, attempting to sell seemingly useless items to the unsuspecting inhabitants in each car. She even owns and operates several cars on the train including the Lucky Cat Car, Le Chat Chalet Car, and her own namesake car.
She appears to conduct business dealings on the train only using her title of "The Cat". With the exception of Simon who calls her Samantha.
Appearance[]
The Cat is a short-haired, beige white cat with yellow eyes. In Book One, she wore a green, buttoned vest with a blue ascot. In Book Two, while running the Lucky Cat Car, Samantha wore a blue vest with a red ribbon and a skimmer hat. In Book Three, during her vacation, the Cat wears a light purple robe with a dark purple, fuzzy lining (which suspiciously matches Frank's). In Book Four, Samantha wears a blue poofy sleeved Victorian dress with a blonde wig and two blue feathers in her hair.
Personality[]
The Cat is a shrewd business-cat, always looking for opportunities to collect unique things and make sales, even of entirely useless items. Outside of her business schemes, her intentions are difficult to read: initially, she planned to deliver One-One to the Conductor and schemed with the Conductor to trap Tulip in her memory tape. However, it is implied her plan to deliver One-One to the Engine was to help him regain control of the train from Amelia. This is in line with her stated philosophy that she always "does the right thing," even if her reasons are unstated in the moment.
Her overall relationship with the passengers is somewhat unclear: as shown in "The Old West Car" she is not above selling out passengers like Ryan and Min-Gi for profit, although she also helped orchestrate the plan to free the two later on. She also genuinely cared about Tulip's safety, and even helped her get to the Engine to fight the Conductor; when she mistook Lake for Tulip, she was initially worried that Tulip was still on the train.
Her former companionship with Simon shows she is capable of connecting with passengers on a deeper level, to the point that she stayed with him for months. However, she accidentally left him behind during an attack by a Ghom and never went back for him, which directly led to him meeting Grace Monroe and eventually forming the Apex. His experiences with the Cat's abandonment directly instilled a lifelong hatred of denizens and fear of abandonment.
Despite her overall antagonistic relationship with the Apex, the Cat still harbors mixed emotions about Simon and tries to help where she can when they met up again, including giving him a hidden device that will give him access to Grace's memories and telling him how to make use of it. However, she warns him in vain that this could be dangerous, and laments that he has no idea what he's doing when he is out of earshot. This demonstrates that she knows her actions may not help Simon in the long run, a notable contrast to her claim that she always does the right thing.
History[]
To read all the appearances of "The Cat" visit the synopsis article.
The Cat has been on the train for at least 150 years. At one point she traveled with a young passenger named Simon Laurent for a few months, with the two becoming extremely close to the point that the cat acted as the boy's parental guardian. They were separated when the pair were attacked by a Ghom in the Box Car. Fleeing from the creature, Samantha slid through a box and did not realize Simon was not with her until she was too far away. Her accidental abandonment of Simon led to him meeting Grace Monroe and instilling a hatred of denizens, leaving their relationship in a tenuous position for the next eight years.
The Cat is aware of Amelia Hughes' takeover as conductor of the Infinity Train, and has had more than a few encounters with her, claiming Amelia has tried to kill her numerous times. Nonetheless, they have occasionally formed grudging alliances, which are generally one-sided due to the threat Amelia poses to the Cat. She has also encountered the Apex on a number of occasions since its formation, holding a bitter rivalry with Grace but a tenuous tenderness for Simon despite his actions since joining the Apex.
Relationships[]
Simon[]
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Tulip[]
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Randall[]
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Frank[]
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Amelia[]
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Trivia[]
Character sheet available at the Cartoon Network voice acting seminar at San Diego Comic-Con 2018.
- The Cat holds the distinction of being the only character who has appeared in all four seasons of Infinity Train.
- Whenever the Cat first appears in each book, a sequence of four notes that is similar to the theme for the series can be heard in the background.
- According to Owen Dennis in the Book 3 AMA on Reddit The Cat is one of the few denizens who has a long lifespan. Most denizens have a normal lifespan based on their species. [2]
- The Cat was given the name Kate Mulgrowl by a fan during a Reddit AMA, a pun and reference to her voice actor. The name was accepted by Owen Dennis, though the only official material the name has appeared in at this point is several gifs by Cartoon Network that have been tagged with the name.
- The Cat was written specifically for Kate Mulgrew.[3]
- According to Owen Dennis, the writers made the decision early on that The Cat would use random French words, and simply assumed that Kate Mulgrew spoke French, only to realize they had no evidence for this claim. "Then she started recording and immediately said the most perfect French and we were like 'this is the most amazing thing we've ever seen.'"[4]
- Ironically, in the episode "The Cat's Car" she says, "Je ne serais jamais" which is an incorrect translation of "I would never". While grammatically correct, it doesn't really correspond to how a native French speaker would speak in this context and translates to "I would never be (missing unspecified thing)". One possibility is that this is derived from the similarly pronounced "Je n'oserais jamais", which would more fittingly translate to "I would never dare": this pronunciation is how it is spelled in the HBO Max captions of "The Cat's Car."
- At San Diego Comic-Con 2018, Cartoon Network hosted a voice acting seminar for attendees. Among the example sides handed out to participants were audition sides for the Cat, Randall, and Amelia. The official description given for the Cat was as follows: "She is a sly, shrewd, business-cat. A canny schemer. The Cat is constantly thinking about how any situation about benefit her in some way. She cleverly tries to orchestrate people on the train to her own benefit. Her voice and speaking style sound educated and refined, almost a transatlantic/mid-Atlantic accent, but warm enough that you could believe whatever she's trying to sell you (though you definitely shouldn't)."
- The audition sides also included some example lines (none of which have been used in the show).
- (reassuring with ulterior motive) My, my, my! This is truly a stressful situation for you my dear! Surely we can find some sort of arrangement for you to get off this train...
- (panicked, afraid) No! My things! I'll do anything, but please, don't destroy my things!
- (sincere for once) I'm proud of almost every choice I've ever made in my 9 lives, but falling in line with the conductor is not one of them.
- The audition sides also included some example lines (none of which have been used in the show).
Gallery[]
Click here to view this page's gallery.
References[]
- ↑ Learn French With The Cat | Infinity Train | Cartoon Network
- ↑ Book 3 AMA: The lifespan of a denizen.
- ↑ Book 1 DVD Commentary. "The Beach Car."
- ↑ Owen Dennis's tweet about The Cat and Kate Mulgrew speaking French. (Archived from the original)
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