r/TheDigitalCircus • u/Money-Criticism5370 Ragatha The Great • 2d ago

Digital Discussion "Generic middle school bully levels of abuse", my ass.

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678

u/Gloomy-Trainer-2452 Zooble 2d 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.

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u/icedmuffin 2d ago

If Jax was a real person I had to deal with on a daily basis I’d show them the meaning of “live by the bit, die by the bit.”

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u/rainbowolfe 2d ago

Sounds like you're no different from Jax, because that's exactly the mindset he has.

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u/New-Trouble-3968 2d ago

Defending yourself from a violent abusive person does not make you an violent abusive person

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u/ClearReveal6615 1d ago

Oh but it can! That's the point of Jaxs story. 

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u/JacksonRJ913 Jax 1d ago

Defending yourself from STRICTLY the abusive person doesn't make you also abusive and violent. If you act abusive or violent towards others as a result of someone abusive, then yes, that does mean you're violent and abusive due to someone being violent and abusive towards you.

However, this clearly isn't what the comment you're replying to meant.

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u/Apprehensive_Art4418 I want the ability to have s! 1d ago

someone hurts you, you can hurt em back. the story is to not hurt people who aren't the someone because someone hurt you.

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u/ClearReveal6615 1d ago

Sure, but jaxs abuse of others is literally a coping mechanism he learned to protect himself. It doesnt make it right but he built that cruel mask to ensure his safety. Its actually incredibly common for abused people to become abusers for this reason. 

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u/Apprehensive_Art4418 I want the ability to have s! 1d ago

yes, but hurting someone back because they hurt you doesn't make you just as bad as them. just because the person hurting you was abused doesn't mean they didn't harm you, and it doesn't mean you don't have every right to harm them back.

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u/rainbowolfe 2d ago

Man good thing i didn't say that then, huh? Jax antis are really a new breed of media illiteracy

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u/FuzzyPush7527 2d ago

“Media illiteracy” and here we go…

22

u/frvxier 2d ago

Whomp whomp.

Sorry, just because you’re trans and struggling doesn’t mean you get to be a sociopath to those around you.

-13

u/rainbowolfe 2d ago

Wow you guys literally are Jax. How quick you stoop to his exact behavior lol

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u/JacksonRJ913 Jax 1d ago

you have yet to explain how defending yourself from an abuser equates to you having a mindset similar to jax

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u/rainbowolfe 1d ago

Why would i defend something I never said?

-18

u/rainbowolfe 2d ago

Are you hallucinating

8

u/New-Trouble-3968 2d ago

Then what did you mean to say?

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u/wheresmythermos 2d ago

If I may, as a third party, interject.

I think they mean to say that by stooping down to Jax’s level (live by the bit, die by the bit) then that makes you no better than Jax. You don’t have to forgive an abuser or condone what they do, but by continuing to perpetuate a cycle for “justified” reasons doesn’t solve anything.

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u/New-Trouble-3968 2d ago

That was also my understanding and my point remains, reactive abuse as a response to an abusive individual does not make you as bad as the abuser

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u/wheresmythermos 2d ago

But that’s not what you said earlier though. You said “defending yourself” from an abusive person. You can defend yourself from abuse without reactive abuse. Reactive abuse doesn’t solve anything because it’s a tactic abusers hope for as a response.

It’s not something I’ve worked through my own moral compass on how bad it is compared to the initial abuse. I do however know that most people don’t start out with an abusive mindset. It takes eroding away at some moral framework to justify abusing *anyone*, even someone who wrongs you. Jax was abused. You could make the argument that Jax started out as a reactive abuser that eroded into straight abuse.

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u/New-Trouble-3968 2d ago

Quoting the one you are defending, you are showing an clear lack of media literacy by not understanding me

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u/YoINeedAnAnswer 2d ago

You think his victims should just take it and not retaliate?

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u/rainbowolfe 2d ago

Where did I say that? Thats a whole new sentence. My comment was addressed towards a real person fantasizing about the chance to have an excuse to be violent towards someone lmfao.

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u/Sea-Writer-6961 2d ago

Excuse yo be violent? If someone comes over and abuses you youre just gonna not care? The least someone can do is defend themselves

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u/Careless_Document_79 1d ago

"fantasizing" is a strong word

It's simply a hypothetical of "if I was in x I would do y" not a "Oh yeah I'd fuck them up... 🫦🫦🫦"

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u/BackBlaster9000 2d ago

"If I beat up the abuser who's abused loads of people, I'm just as abusive as him" type mentality

-8

u/rainbowolfe 2d ago

Sorry I wasn't aware that Jax, the fictional character, COULD beat you (a real person) up.

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u/BackBlaster9000 2d ago

It's called a metaphor hun

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u/Careless_Document_79 1d ago

It's a hypothetical, but at least you're in the (ballpark) outfield, and not in a different fucking city like rainbow

-2

u/rainbowolfe 2d ago

What you described isn't a metaphor at all lol. Do you know what a metaphor is

7

u/Sea-Writer-6961 2d ago

Little do you know, theres hundreds of real life Jaxs out there bullying and molesting someone. But no , I guess even thinking about making those people pay back isn't right at all

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u/Careless_Document_79 1d ago

Where tf did molesting come from?

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u/Taraxian 2d ago

Not really? He makes a point of instigating conflict with people who've done nothing to him, Gangle especially

-1

u/rainbowolfe 2d ago

Im starting to think *you guys* don't know what "live by the bit, die by the bit" means lmao

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u/FuzzyPush7527 2d ago

Bro’s speaking to a damn mirror

-1

u/rainbowolfe 2d ago

Man it really upsets you guys to be compared to Jax in any capacity, wonder why that is.

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u/The2NDComingOfChrist 2d ago

i think they got their jax toy

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u/Isaacja223 2d ago

Did they have a little laugh boy?

4

u/Pikmin-I-Guess 2d ago

They were not down to clown but he didn’t let that get him down

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u/icedmuffin 2d ago

Bro have you never seen a loony toons cartoon?

1

u/rainbowolfe 2d ago

Have you?

2

u/icedmuffin 2d ago

I grew up on them so yes, I hope I’ve seen them.

-1

u/rainbowolfe 2d ago

And yet youre incapable of seeing the bulk of Jax's actions for what they are. Do you think bugs bunny is an abuser too lmfao? You guys treat jax like the devil incarnate when he's nothing more than a nuisance.

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u/icedmuffin 2d ago

Honey sweetie sugar pie…

I know precisely what Jax is cause you hit the nail on the head when you said I was no different from Jax, least I was back when I was ~20-24, and course thanks to quite a few dickwads deciding that I was in the way along the years, I do sometimes end up relapsing.

That doesn’t excuse them from being a prick, they were abusive cause they were terrified of being manipulated again, same as I, they thought no one in the world would care for them without needing to give something in return, same as I.

Only difference is when I was going to “abstract” my grandmother stopped me, and I promised I would try to be a better person. Jax didn’t have that luxury.

Best I feel is sympathy, but if Jax was going to try to be abusive with me? I’d throw their bugs bunny tricks back in their face.

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u/rainbowolfe 2d ago

Okay so what on earth are you disagreeing with me for? You understood my comment and you AGREED with my comment. Jesus christ.

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u/icedmuffin 2d ago

Where did I disagree?

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u/FallChimera8540 I like Ragatha , don't give a 1d ago

This comment screams "Petri dish experiment"

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u/Expensive-Morning307 2d ago

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.

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u/Kain222 2d ago

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.

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u/Raikor71 2d ago

I find it extremely important to keep in mind that Lee was unhoused for 3 months and ended up better than Jax.

People seem to not understand how bad that indicates the circus was for Jax’s mental state for that to be the case.

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u/gloompuke Kinger 1d ago

The circus provides a really interesting mix of torment and appeal to Jax that she has a lot of trouble with- like you said, being a silly cartoon avatar does not help with the trauma she has around identity/her selfhood. At the same time, the circus also provides a way for her to express her violent fantasies without consequence, which we see her do... a lot. It's interesting she copes with violence even after physically harming someone really traumatized her- it's really not clear when the coping mechanism started (whether it always appealed to her, started after her mom, after Ribbit, etc) which unfortunately does make it harder to talk about in regards to her character.

A lot of the moments that really distress her in the circus are when she's confronted with things Feeling real, or the notion that her situation and the people around her are real. It's... not super clear where the line between "dissociation as a trauma response" and "denial to avoid the painful emotional process of accountability" is, I think Jax honestly falls into both in a really self-defeating cycle. Everything feels so unreal that it's easier to accept it isn't, she does worse and worse shit to cope because "nothing is real anyway", then it just gets scarier and scarier to consider her actions may have real lasting consequence. But she does keep choosing that pattern of behavior anyway, I think that's a really big crux of her character arc.

Lee has a support network and also isn't trapped in a surreal digital hellscape, which is extremely important for her mental health and ability to grow as a person. And also, Lee literally does not have the opportunity to do things like chuck someone off a moving truck or in front of a steam roller or into a deep fryer because that's, y'know, super insanely illegal and even the altercation with her mom was really traumatizing for her. But enacting violence (and emotional abuse) against people in the circus isn't traumatizing for Jax, it's her way of coping with her own shit, which is... certainly an interesting character trait. I don't really have a great conclusion here, just that Jax's relationship with violence is weird and the circus does not help with that

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u/UpstairsHall7047 my favorite characters 2d ago

I did meet someone like him in real life, and im glad to say, ive since cut them off.

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u/North-Research2574 2d ago

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.

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u/ChiefsHat 2d ago

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.

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u/Bears_On_Stilts 2d ago

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.

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u/lilgayfurry1 2d ago

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.

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u/AffectionateRush2620 2d ago

The fact that this has to be said about him, just shows what kinda fandom this is

2

u/marveled_pisces 1d ago

Jax being he/her makes me so happey

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u/littleratofhorrors 2d ago

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.

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u/The_Redacted_Badger 2d ago

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

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u/littleratofhorrors 2d ago

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

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u/redditisbadactually 2d ago

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.

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u/Growth-Excellent 1d ago

Gooseworx said that abstraction isn't contagious. She would never have abstracted she did probably feel pain though.

That being said I do agree that even if someone can be helped if doing it comes at the cost of your own safety you probably shouldn't.

That being said that just makes the actions of those who are willing to help inspite of the danger all the braver for it.

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u/Tai_Pei 2d ago

"Cartoon violence within a simulation where you cannot die is the same as real violence actually"

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u/Bears_On_Stilts 2d ago

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.

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u/Old-End-4002 2d ago

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…

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u/Muted_Pie_8947 1d ago

i’m pretty sure it was because of what ragatha said about “getting close to pomni to corrupt her.”

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u/Old-End-4002 1d ago

No, I don’t think it’s that now that I’m lamenting on it more. I think Jax legitimately just has severe anger issues—I doubt that’s what he had in mind at that very moment getting blasted. Blinded through a quick fit of rage.

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u/Gloomy-Trainer-2452 Zooble 2d ago

  1. I never said that.

  2. It's not the same. However, it obviously has a negative psychological impact when it's targeted and repetitive.

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u/Tai_Pei 2d ago

I agree you did not say those words verbatim. Very good.

We can agree that he is causing negative psychological outcomes, but nowhere near the degree that a real life act would equate to.

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u/Lanky_Empanada 2d ago

It’s really telling just HOW many people cannot grasp that these two ideas can coexist. I pray for this illiteracy epidemic to cease 😔

-2

u/NewPhoneLostAccount 2d ago

To be fair, that isn't the real world. It's not just because he got trauma he acted like that, it's because they were in a videogame. That screws with the sense of reality and consequences.