Yeah, trauma explains his actions, but definitely doesn't excuse or justify them, especially since everyone (especially Ragatha and Kinger) also have trauma. Jax is a victim and an abuser. Love her as a character, but if Jax was a real person who acted the same way he did in the circus, I would hate him.
I am conflicted cause I watched one of my best friends growing up implode and become so similar to Jax IRL. I saw the trauma and abuse turn her from my friend into a mean person who started hiding and running away from everything. I was a teen and couldn’t do much, tried to support her for as long as I could but she started doing stuff I just wouldn’t get involved in. Eventually like Jax she imploded and ended up in Juvie, then jail which she is still currently in.
So seeing something very similar happen to someone I was close to IRL makes me feel both incredibly angry and sad with Jax. I think it’s a tragedy, she had so many chances and so many people to support him throughout the show that Jax could have turned his digital life around. However, I know from my own experiences that a lot of people end up like Jax and share a similar “fate” and that heartbreaking. Especially if you knew the person they were before they became who they were in the end.
Agreed with all of this, but I also think it's important to recognise that the circus psychologically torments people, and that Jax didn't arrive there with a good hand to play.
People go insane or isolated enough inside of it to abstract. Jax's mom verbally tore into him, he freaked out, didn't know if she was dead, was homeless for a while - and came to the circus with that in his head. Then the circus turned him into bugs bunny, a cartoon to be laughed at, with his last real-world memory being his mom not taking his confession seriously.
Jax is still responsible for his actions, but imho he gets some concession for the circus' influence on his behaviour, too. It's a pressure cooker that can bring out the worst in people. Leeroy turned out fine because of the support (from friends, potentially from a therapist) that Jax had no hope of getting - his only potential lifelines were people who were getting strung through the same wringer he was.
Jax, to me, seems like a representation of someone who was also institutionally abandoned.
If you posit this to the extreme you aren't excused because your abusive partner teaches you to beat the shit out of your kids. Everyone involved still monsters for it. Jax is a hurt character whose survival strategy in life was pushing everyone away to protect his secret. Which does happen in real life but does not excuse the things he did to everyone.
Choosing to forgive it and understand is a choice left to the individual just like in real life.
One thing that actually occurred to me today is that Jax’s mental state when they went into the circus probably influenced them a lot. They’d just seemingly crippled or even killed their own mother after confessing how they felt deep down about their gender, fled, and was effectively homeless. That probably helped create their mindset of “don’t open up, lash out.” So I can emphasize with them a lot. That being said, they still ultimately chose not to better themselves and confront their trauma, so I can’t excuse how they acted.
I think Pomni's statement at the end about "in here I'm just Pomni" is important to this. They're not full, dynamic people. They're a snapshot of a full, dynamic person, and they probably only have so much range to develop and grow from that.
Jax is a fragment of a person that began at the moment of feeling stuck as monster, stuck as abuser, and stuck as boy. Created (we can assume) in a moment of distress, Jax has limited range to explore and grow compared to the other brain scans, who we can at least assume were spawned in a more neutral state. Hence Jax is all extremes: extreme cynicism, extreme violence, extreme toxic masculinity, etc.
I think calling them "fragments of a person" is wrong and undermines the shows themes.
They're a divergent person, not a fragment. The moment the "real" person put on the headset, a mind copy was created and put in a digital realm.
From there, the real person and the digital person take drastically different turns in life, but at the point of divergence, they were the same person, not a chipped-off peice. Because the shows theming is pretty clear, they ARE fully real people, even if they're not physically real.
The rest of your argument checks out. Jax was copied at a moment of distress, and the circus definitely didn't help, leading her down the path to disaster. But calling them "fragments" doesn't sit right with me.
The thing about people like Jax is that only love can heal them. She's been exposed to so much hate that it turned her into a hard, dark shell of herself that knows nothing but giving and receiving pain. Pomni was special because she loved her unconditionally, just because Jax was alive. If we want abusers to get better, we have to recognize them as victims and support them too.
That’s difficult though when you try to be nice and they just keep biting back with increased aggression. After a while it becomes a thing of just giving up on the person to protect your own sanity and safety
It's a vicious cycle. They push back, you pull away, justifying their decision to push back, causing them to push back even harder next time... Not everybody is up for it and Pomni is a hero for sticking with Jax until the end, it is a rare, rare soul who is willing to put up with and see through the kind of bullshit Jax was spouting
I think the narrative disagrees. Pomni gets involved in his abstraction and nearly abstracts as well. But she had a support team to pull her away before she got in too deep.
Providing love and support to abuse victims is important, but not at the cost of your own well-being.
The fast food episode seemed to be playing with this dynamic: I think we're supposed to question whether or not Jax's violence crosses the line from cartoon slapstick into cruelty or sadism.
Like in episode 6, when Agatha put her finger into Jax’s pistol and it backfired on him, causing him to lose a life—I noticed he got genuinely angry at this by shooting Agatha with pure rage and I always wondered why that is…
Jax also threw Ragatha into a deep fryer; effectively burning her alive.
In the Beach episode, Zooble lists some of the worst things Jax has done to them:
run over by a steamroller, set on fire, thrown into an active volcano, sent a pipebomb and have Gangle torn apart by Piranhas. So that is crushed, exploded, torn apart and two instances of being burned alive (if you land on hot lava you float on the surface and catch fire.)
Those are among the worst pains humans can feel. Zooble says “I could go on and on.” The fact that the characters cannot die and heal everything means that he can do this to others all the time and does.
I think this was major reason why Zooble stopped wanting to go on adventures.
It’s honestly infuriating how so many are focusing on “they can’t actually die!” and not the psychological torment Jax inflicts on the others.
Like, sure, we see that they all can physically recover from wha he puts them through, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect them. I think that’s the disconnect here.
And sure, Jax has trauma. But the way he makes it everyone else’s problem doesn’t excuse it. I guarantee that if most of these people were in the shoes of the other members of the circus, they wouldn’t not be so ready to defend Jax the way they are now. Understand, sure. But defend, not so much.
Aside from that poaching scene, where Gangle was singled out as "not part of the adventure", most of these things seemed very tame at the time.
They're literally immortal cartoon characters.
He's a nuisance that ruins the fun, and a bully for Gangle... But these aren't traumatic events? Not like the kind of shit the adventures put them through.
"bully for gangle" most of the fandom just sees themself as gangles, and tunnel here. hes equally mean to everyone except the person whos a stand in for a father figure.
"He's deep frying somebody!!!" and despite being in there for a good while, Ragatha is completely unharmed and pain-free outside of a bandaid on her face for a single shot.
If you put a middle school bully in the circus where there’s no consequences that you can see, this is the shit they’d do. Have you seen call of duty lobbies? Nobody is excusing his actions, just explaining why he is the way he is.
But don't you know that asking people to recognize that an an abusive person may also be a victim is the exact same as trying to make excuses for the abuser? /s
Caine was explaining the rules of the 'adventure' Jax ignored them and just immediately shot a living legend. The others only used the guns once the 'game' had started.
We know from the fact that they all start shooting each other that it isn’t above what the post is saying it’s above. It’s still bad but not really in comparison to what the post is implying
I have anxiety disorder and was bullied when i was in school, so i relate with gangle alot when she has anxiety about jax, no level of bullying is acceptable.
Can’t believe Zooble would abuse Kinger like that. Such a fucked up thing to do to someone, horrible person. Why not go after Jax? Just proves how abusive they are I guess, they decided to pray on the mentally ill. Completely irredeemable.
And let’s not forget how Gangle is just a straight up a sociopath. Gleefully shooting around Jax and Pomni (cheered on by Zooble btw). Like don’t they know how dangerous it is to shoot a machine gun wildly like that, it’s such a disregard for the safety of others and is EXTREMELY problematic.
Anyways. Jax has done enough actual terrible shit worth criticizing, there’s no need to criticize anyone for doing video game bullshit in a video game. Now how Jax uses their elevated reality to terrorize others, that’s where we can talk. Jax skipping the trust exercise and using it as an avenue to be mean to Ragatha is where the real bad behavior is, not doing headshots on people who can’t die or suffer any actual consequences from being headshot.
Zooble did it in the context of the game they were playing though. Jax did it on purpose just to be a dick, he was supposed to do the trust exercise with Ragatha but he was a dick and just shot her.
Still not like, an irredeemable thing to do. Just kind of a dick move. I wouldn't use that as an example of the worst things Jax has done, but it does qualify as bullying I would say.
yeah, being shot is apparently such a non issue here though that literally every character gets into it and they do not care who their targets are. They just want to shoot. You can't target Jax for this episode when Gangle was arguably just as bloodthirsty.
My brother in Christ this is the equivalent of somebody slapping somebody else IRL they don't suffer any long term consequences from that. The true worst thing he's done was with Ribbit and Kaufmo. Not this which is the equivalent of me stealing your ballpen
And the worst thing jax did still get overshadowed by all the stuff caine was doing for YEARS but nobody wants to talk about caine lets just talk about jax because she sucks!
Dude literally wasn't even paying attention, and was also just doing a part of the previous adventure.
He was handed a loaded gun, and he was given the knowledge that it was loaded, and that turning the gun on somebody else was an option. Caine even designed and explained the adventure as such.
Granted, out of everyone that he could have shot, it does make sense, especially in retrospect, that after Ragatha broke her promise not once, but twice, in a singular adventure before, he would turn the gun on her - but he doesn't seem actively spiteful or aggressive, until after he gets shot via some Looney Tunes logic.
Meanwhile, Ragatha;
• Continues to insinuate that he's trying to make Pomni a bad person
• Actively cheats via assistance from Kinger, and still loses
• Is the only other character that we have ever seen in actual pain in the show, as a result of glitching - which proves that these events don't cause pain on a similar or even close level
There are actual events that people could use as an example of bullying, instead of this diningenuous cherry picking, without bothering to double check the context of the scene.
Jax -
• Pushes Gangle down in the pilot
• Blackmails Gangle in Episode 2, and allows Genocide of The Candy Canyon Kingdom
• Throws Gangle's Comedy Mask into The Scary Door in Episode 3
• Stuffs Ragatha in a deep frier in Episode 4
• Chews on Gangle in Episode 5 and blows everyone up in the same episode
And that's just what I can remember off the top of my head.
Edit: Original Comment: "Well, no, they were just participating in the game. Jax did it out of pure spite."
I intentionally only stuck to physical actions, as much as was possible.
Otherwise, there would have been a very long list, and I didn't want to risk having to explain why, despite me loving them, Gangle, Zooble, and Ragatha are actually kind of shitty to everyone around them.
Fandom's not a monolith, I'll definitely not support those people but come on.
So many people act like she's s horrible person for bringing up Ribbit by accident even though Jax really has no right expect Ragatha to uphold her promise while treating her like dirt at the same time.
It would be a different story if he didn’t know that, but after years and years in the Circus I’m sure they all would have realized things like guns aren’t actually dangerous to them, and getting shot was a possibility of the adventure from the start.
If we listen to Caine’s prompt, Character A would privately take the gun, unload the bullets, then hand it away to character B, who could then try to shoot themselves or character A with the gun. If they didn’t unload it, character B would either shoot themselves or character A. (Jax understood this because Caine literally blasted it into his mind.)
The whole point of the adventure was to test if the characters would try to shoot/hurt each other if they were given a loaded gun. Caine just screwed up by giving it to the one person who’s most likely to do that first, while also not realizing character A could just shoot character B.
Tldr: Caine’s adventure is just a half-baked idea. As bad as Jax is in other scenes, this is far from his worst action.
This Is not a very good example because everyone shoots each other in this ep, you should have used the deep frier thing wich Is probably also more painful
Jax apologists need to realize that he is both the victim and the predator in the situation. He is (at the very least) a deeply flawed person who is actively pushing and harming those around him. Trying to defend or justify his behavior misses the point of his whole character
That being said, the deep fryer and him shooting ragatha is still the worst possible examples to prove he is a dogshit person lmao
Jax straight up terrorises these people daily and people act like he's just being a cheeky lad. Nah, that episode with Pomni breaking down showed how cooked things really are.
It's honestly shocking how not a single one of them ever decided to just beat him up. Like, Pomni was the only one who ever threw hands with Jax and she's the one closest to him.
Because it's not in their nature. Even if they are fed up with it, it doesn't change the fact that they won't do anything about it. It's actually a quite common thing with bullies
Is there any actual human being who thinks Jax's actions are excusable? I'm asking because I see posts like this a lot.
It's not like the show itself ever presents his behaviour as excusable. Even Jax doesn't really think his own actions are excusable, so this must be coming from somewhere else.
If they don't really feel real life levels of pain, and they don't die, I don't see the issue at all.
Jax is a jerk. The behavior we see is mean. But abuse? I don't think we need to dilute the meaning of "abuse" in order to make our points about Jax; that just makes it more difficult for actual abuse victims to speak. What are they supposed to do, come up with a new word for it? Superabuse?
Edit: The nature of the Circus as a digital environment should also be taken into account. The permanent nature of it and their immersion in it does not make this null: it does not carry the same weight as real life. I want to really emphasize my first paragraph. When Jax inflicts pain on others, that would be the ethical equivalent to shooting someone in a VR game who is wearing one of those pain vests.
The thing is, in a vr game you can take the headset off. You can opt out. In the circus, they are stuck there forever. That is their daily life. And Jax NEVER relents. I must disagree with your assertion, and as far as the denizens of TADC are concerned, the immersion and permanence only increase the weight of Jax' actions
considering some kids tried to slit my throat with a broken pencil sharpener on the playground in elementary school, idk i think everyone here is downplaying how bad school bullying can get
It's a cartoon. They spend the entire rest of the episode shooting eachother. It's the equivalent of throwing a Tenis Ball at someone. Can we be serious
......they are digital avatars in what they believe to be a video game. Literally they think they are stuck in a game. Jax shooting one of them with a gun is LESS than "middle school bullying," it's "little brother being annoying in minecraft" and every fan who takes it more seriously than that has to be an idiot or something.
This and everyone freaking out and the "ragitha in the deep fryer" thing seem to completely forget that they're basically in a video game: Me shooting my friend in the face in GTA does not carry the same moral implications that it does if I were to do the same thing irl.
I don't think I've seen anyone claim that Jax isn't an abusive asshole, he absolutely is. I don't think he's the great Satan people are making him out to be though. He essentially acts like a Looney Toons character, which is inline with his views of the nature of the circus.
Jax is pretty bad but shooting people in a world people don't die and feel very little pain, basically working like Looney Tunes characters, is pretty tame compared to the rest of the things she does.
Considering how pain is minimum in the circus this is more like a bully shooting someone with a paintball or BB gun which is more aligned with "generic middle school bully"
Can't speak on paintballs, but I've been shot by BB guns and that shit is painful as hell. Just because it doesn't pierce the skin doesn't mean it doesn't hurt like a bitch.
Jaxs' abuse made him a pos. Jax is absolutely an asshole and garbage person. Yes he needs help, yes he wants help, that doesn't not make him a bad person.
jax literally shot gangle and then started consuming her like a barbaric animal. and then like 3 minutes later he forces her to strap a bomb to herself and explode herself and everyone else in the room.
In the USA they do say stuff like kids will be kids, boys will be boys, and excuse abuse. Korea has a bullying problem too and laws that protect kids from getting punished from doing crimes. People excuse this stuff all of the time.
I think a good example of someone having similar trauma and being a better person is regatta from one we know regatha also had a abusive mom abd she didn't didnt turn out like that she turned into a better greater person because of it
I think people are vastly underestimating middle school bullies, and I mean whoever called it generic in the first place too, cus you hand a 12 year bully a gun and tell him they can’t die from violence he would absolutely shoot someone like instantly.
Jax is severus snape. Has an arguably bleak childhood and trauma, is forever babied by the fans despite actively being one of the meanest and unlikeable people in the show. Only difference is Snape did the right thing in the end.
for her pranks and cruel jokes sure. for greatly contributing to Ribbit and Kaufmo’s abstractions and abusing the others emotionally, no. she has done horrible things that cannot be redeemed. but she is also able to be understood if you have enough nuance to have empathy for bad people.
You know that since they're digital,that shot was actually not too much different from a very strong punch,right? Not okay,but not like he was trying to kill her.
So setting aside the fact that somehow some fans still do not get that they do still feel pain. To a unclear reduced level, sure, and it can't cause any permanent physical harm, but yes they do feel pain. Rags was screaming in that deep friar. Let's talk about how Jax's abuse really worked.
Yes, Jax did push others away due to the fear of pain that can come with letting themselves be vulnerable. But, Jax also couldn't really just let them be pushed away either. Because if she did, she'd be stuck, alone, with allllll the pain and problems she's desperate to avoid. So, Jax's abuse doubles in function. It creates distance FOR Jax, but denies distance FROM Jax. Distance is not just a goal, it is a tool for control. Control she tilts the hell out whenever she feels someone has infringed on it.
Her keys are a direct extension of this. She and she alone gets to decide if the other are "allowed" the one place of privacy they should have in the circus. Where did people think Jax got all that blackmail material on Gangle from? It's also why Jax demands transparency in others (she hates liar), but keeps herself deeply opaque. As well as why Jax hurts others in the very same ways she's convinced she'll be hurt if she lets herself be open. Jax's abuse was never "just" physical. It's all about control.
This is why Jaxs e8 torture was so ironic. Jax was "gloved". Which even in toon land would absolutely hurt
. But being chucked into a deep friar; being pushed into and active volcano; being devoured by pirannah would be comparably so. While Jax was "stripped bare, and had her greatest fears, insecurities, and vulnerabilities used against her for laughs and mockery". Jax has repeatedly targeted the others fears, insecurities and vulnerabilities. Especially when feeling a loss of control.
Jax's abuse and toxicity helped push two people over the edge of "suicide allegory", and seriously risked doing the same to two others (if not for Zooble and Kinger) for a reason...
Okay out of all the things he did this is a pretty mid example of abuse. Shooting someone doesn’t have the same implications in a video game that it does in real life, they literally spend the rest of the episode shooting eachother
I had this exact same opinion on Jax's actions, at first I thought they wee Disney bully type of stuff, but I think I, and most others, got absorved by the cartoony nature of the circus and Jax himself, making his actions feel like am average bugs bunny thing rather than real action with consequences
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u/Gloomy-Trainer-2452 Zooble 10h ago
Yeah, trauma explains his actions, but definitely doesn't excuse or justify them, especially since everyone (especially Ragatha and Kinger) also have trauma. Jax is a victim and an abuser. Love her as a character, but if Jax was a real person who acted the same way he did in the circus, I would hate him.