I have long believed that while many people like Alex are that way because of childhood trauma there are some people who are just born wrong. Like a birth defect in the brain instead of the body. I think Clark has a condition called flat affect if I remember what that is correctly. People with that condition are unable to express emotion or even feel emotions much.
Yeah, that's what I'm suspecting too, but some memories or something would have cleared it up. They never developed the one at the beginning, with him and the cat, right? Though I kinda liked that our main mainacter was the more mysterious.
The author wasn't specific about the cat but I felt that was to show his lack of empathy since he just watched the dying cat instead of telling son about it so they could get help.
I really enjoyed it. I liked the characters and the mood and the plot. I just would have liked to have a better explanation of why Clark was like that. It's implied that he couldn't feel as much as other people (his cold attitude, seemingly fake empathy, only being able to taste strong stuff) but there's really no explicit explanation, like, say, Alex's flashbacks and his doctor's comments about him(Or did I miss something? A whole chapter, maybe?) And the triggering event> failed revenge attempt> surprise-it-was-my-plan-all-along sequence happened kind of fast. And the doctor had a lot of potential to be cared for later on but his motivations weren't explained enough to be reasonable or he hadn't enough spotlight to be developed properly (how I felt about him was mainly influenced by how Clark considered him special, and not by his own personality or actions). And I would have liked way less censorship (first time I don't mean it sex-wise lmao). Maybe skipping the whole process (their thoughts, memories and reactions) of when Alex killed the doctor was one of the reasons we didn't care that much about it. Anyways, it couldn't be perfect and maybe I'm being too picky, I guess. A very refreshing and interesting series, nonetheless.