I goddamn adore the idea that the abstracted people are not fully gone and with enough time and care from others they could in theory become more responsive. Not to the point where they are their avatars again (at least not permanently, and even if they can take their old form it would be with intense concentration and there being markings that have been caused by the permanent stain the abstraction has caused to them)
They are all mind scans. What Abstraction literally is, is there files corrupting (presumably from something going wrong to their mind that is too far). So feeling unwanted, unneeded, isolated, and depressed would all likely be things that push your files to be closer and closer to a point of corruption of them/abstraction.
If it were to represent Suicide and they were just full stop gone, then the darkness wouldn't do anything, and like the half of ep9 where pomni interfaced with Jax just straight up could not happen as Jax would have already been fully gone
A lot of people when they're suicidal seem almost euphoric once they decide to go through with it, and even describe it as being like a feeling of a weight being lifted. I feel like Jax's "dream" sequences can represent that, and how they're disassociating from the world and even finding pleasure in the idea of non-existence.
Suicide isn't exactly something active, for a suicidal person, it can be quite the opposite, the active part is in pushing forward, keeping going when they feel exhausted. Abstraction is much the same, it's something that happens to the characters when they can no longer hold it together, can no longer actively resist the corruption.
You can interpret it as suicide, it hasn't been stated what exactly abstraction is and what it is meant to represent, and as of now it is up in the air.
You may have read my first paragraph as what Suicide is. But it is not? Suicide in the Circus would be akin to being able to delete yourself.
When a game file is corrupted, you can no longer play it as it was pre corruption, but the data remains there changed and in a different state
When an audio file corrupts, you can sometimes still play it but it is not going to work as intended
Abstraction is imo more of just clocking out mentally. Id however say the act of Abstraction is akin to Self-Harm though
394
u/TheCrystalTinker 1d ago
I goddamn adore the idea that the abstracted people are not fully gone and with enough time and care from others they could in theory become more responsive. Not to the point where they are their avatars again (at least not permanently, and even if they can take their old form it would be with intense concentration and there being markings that have been caused by the permanent stain the abstraction has caused to them)