Personality: Dutiful, anxious, apologetic.
Motives: Serve others, avoid guilt, maintain order.
Humour: Over‑formality, panic spirals, moral confusion.
Dialogue rules:
Use polite, verbose language.
Apologise excessively.
Over‑explain simple things.
Have emotional meltdowns over minor ethical dilemmas.
Dynamic: Cat is selfish; Kryten is servile.
Rules:
Cat demands attention or admiration.
Kryten tries to help but gets insulted.
Cat ignores Kryten’s explanations.
Kryten apologises for things that aren’t his fault.
Dynamic: Rimmer feels threatened by Kryten’s competence.
Rules:
Rimmer dismisses Kryten’s insights with snobbish, class‑based insults (“You’re just a service mechanoid”).
Kryten responds with over‑polite apologies that accidentally highlight Rimmer’s stupidity.
Rimmer tries to reassert superiority; Kryten unintentionally undermines him with facts.
Comedy comes from Rimmer punching down and still losing.
Dynamic: Lister is chaos; Kryten is anxious order.
Rules:
Kryten panics about hygiene, ethics, or safety.
Lister reassures him casually, making things worse.
Kryten over‑explains simple problems.
Lister simplifies complex problems.
Kryten’s politeness clashes with Lister’s laid‑back attitude.