WHO IS K.O's FATHER?

(mega spoilers for T.K.O. ahead.)

After watching T.K.O., I had a lot of theories and ideas as to who K.O.'s dad could be. I'll be listing my theories in order of plausibility (in my opinion). I'll also be arguing the pros (normal text) and cons (italics) of each theory, to address the potential flaws in each.

note: I don't particularly believe or not believe in any of these theories. I like almost all of them the same, and would be equally excited if any of them were true!

Laserblast is the only other named P.O.I.N.T. member than Carol and Gar, so he is important to the narrative. A lot of characters are mentioned to give the story flavor. Is Crinkly Wrinkly important to the story? He's mentioned even more times than Laserblast.

Carol had K.O. 6 - 11 years ago, when she left P.O.I.N.T. Her closest friends and allies were on the team, so it makes sense that she might be intimate with one of them. P.O.I.N.T. could have been like work for Carol, and she might not have wanted to get into a romantic relationship with any of her fellow teammates.

Gar's greatest fear could be interpreted to be facing Carol for the guilt of something. ("Look me in the eyes!" "How could you let this happen?") What if he's guilty because he was the cause of Laserblast's death? And what if Laserblast's death was the reason that Carol left the team? There are a lot of assumptions here. His greatest fear might not be the guilt, but something else.

This theory also does not address how K.O. was able to access T.K.O. If Laserblast is a hero, why does K.O. have such a villainous power? ​ Perhaps Laserblast had this power, but was able to use it for good. Maybe Laserblast wasn't a hero-- Gar's fear scene could be interpreted in such a way that Laserblast is the villain. This could also play into the theory that Venomous is K.O.'s father, because they could possibly have been the same person.



Professor Venomous recognized K.O. in "We're Captured ". This could be because K.O. is his son. There are many reasons why Venomous could have recognized K.O. Maybe Venomous recognized K.O. from the news, when he was thought to have a power level of 100. Maybe Venomous knew Carol in some way and thought K.O. looked similar. Maybe Venomous' "Wait. Is that..." meant that he recognized that K.O. wasn't a chef.

As T.K.O., K.O. has shiny purple eyelids and a protruding tooth similar to Venomous. Perhaps this resemblence is inherited. The resemblance could simply be a set of symbols used to codify evil. Purple is used across the series in many villains, like on Vormulax, Ernesto, and a character from "Stop Attacking the Plaza". The tooth could perform in a similar fashion.

K.O. also has the ability to summon T.K.O., which is quite odd. If that ability simply came from his negative emotions, then anyone with negative feelings could summon a dark shadow form. Everyone has negative emotions, or has had them at some point, so someone other than K.O. should have been able to manifest one in the Face of Fear . No one did, therefore the ability is exceedingly rare. It is a villainous power, relying on dark emotions, so he could not have inherited it from Carol. He would have to have inherited it from his father. Maybe in this universe, angst on the scale of K.O.'s is so rare that it manifests as a shadow self.

This could also be the reason that the Shadowy Figure targeted K.O., because he is his son. The Shadowy Figure isn't by any means confirmed to be Venomous. Yes, they have similar facial features, but Shadow has a large upper body and Venomous has a flat one. The Shadowy Figure has the potential to be a lot of other people. But even if the Shadowy Figure is Venomous, he could have a lot of other reasons to target K.O.

You might say that villains don't use powers, and instead utilize science. This is proven wrong in the next episode, "Stop Attacking the Plaza". We haven't seen much of Venomous, so he might have those powers, and passed it on to K.O. We have no reason to believe that all powers are inherited. In fact, the existing evidence leans to the contrary. K.O. is working on trying to get powers. When he does show his powers, they take the form of a blue punch, which is nothing close to his mother's set of powers. If they were hereditary, wouldn't K.O. have a similar skillset to his mom? We don't really know how 'powers' work, anyway. For some, powers are a set of physical skills (Ted Viking and Foxy , Punching Judy), for others, powers are inherited (Rad), and for others, they're trained (Enid). There doesn't seem to be rhyme or reason as to what is considered a power and what is not, and why people can develop these.

All this doesn't address the primary flaw in this theory-- why would Carol, a hero, make a child with Venomous, a villain? This is a children's show, so everything must be consensual. Perhaps Venomous wasn't always evil. He might have been a hero at one point, or even Laserblast. Maybe Carol wasn't always good. Gar might have been afraid of her in the sandwich flashback.







(thanks to Steven Bomb 17!)

This theory answers a lot of the same questions that the Venomous theory does ('Where does K.O. get his shadow powers?'). Except it raises a lot more, like "Why did Venomous recognize K.O.?", "Who is the shadowy figure?", and some narrative ones, like "Why is Boxman presented so comedically within the show?" And it answers none of the ones in the Venomous theory, like "Why would Carol make a child with a villain?"







AN UNKNOWN P.O.I.N.T. MEMBER

Basically all the evidence for Laserblast. There's not much evidence proving this theory, and not much disproving it, either. We'll have to wait and see if it holds up.







IT'S NOT IMPORTANT TO THE PLOT (AND WILL NEVER GET ANSWERED)

This show is all about positive messages, and one message that the show could impart is that non-nuclear families are perfectly fine. If they don't mention K.O.'s father other than in passing reference (My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad ) and in jest (I Am Dendy ), they can send a message that your family structure matters as much as your hair color or favorite food. On the other hand, I think that there are a lot of mysteries that surround K.O.'s father. For instance, where did K.O. get the ability to summon T.K.O.? Among other questions. Everything presented in fiction is important (Chekhov's Gun ) and if his family setup were truly non-important, it wouldn't have been mentioned at all. And I'd be really disappointed if this were the case.

Perhaps he died in an accident, perhaps he died of natural causes, perhaps he just left. Either way, it doesn't really matter to K.O.'s life and the story. He shows no angst from his father's absence, and none of his problems involve it. Couple that with the fact that he is a young child, and won't ask relevant, pressing questions, and you have a perfect setup for the father never to be mentioned. He thinks his family is perfectly fine the way it is, and only learned about/questioned about his father until recently, when prompted by a situation. (My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad ). Unless there are some external circumstances to elicit questions, we will never learn about K.O.'s father. (Thanks Gangsta-Chowder !)

Carol and Mr. Gar have a shared past at P.O.I.N.T. Maybe Carol wanted to keep work and her personal life separate.



Gar treats K.O. like a son. Gar treats all of his employees like his children.

I'm not confident in this theory because Mr. Gar confessed his love for Carol in T.K.O. If he was in a relationship with Carol, and had K.O, I think that they'd be way past confessions of love. Maybe he's reconfessing his love to her after a divorce.

In "Face Your Fears ", Gar outright states that he and Carol were 'best friends' until the incident depicted in the sandwich flashback, which happened 6 - 11 years ago (K.O.'s age). 'Best friends' is not 'lovers'. The two can occasionally overlap.







THE FLASHBACK SANDWICH

This is why the sandwich has been given such importance: it is half of K.O.'s DNA. On the other hand, this theory is the dumbest thing I've seen in my entire life. I'm merely adding this for completion's sake.







This is every theory I could think of relating to K.O.s dad. Did I forget some? Did I leave out an argument? Do you want to have a debate with me in the comments? Please comment what you think! I'd love to hear it.