Jax Has Hopped Down the Circus Drain: My Understandment of Jax's Character (TADC Ep. 9 Spoilers Ahead)
Well folks, we have made it to the end of our circus adventure. It's been a while since I've posted up an analysis on a show, so today we're going to be looking at the series, "The Amazing Digital Circus", an indie-web show on Youtube that focuses on a series of characters that become trapped in a digital landscape.
Today I will be focusing on what I feel like to be the most complex indie character I have ever had the pleasure (and slight discomfort) of viewing. Enter Jax--a tall anthropomorphic purple hare that stands tall in pink overalls and huge yellow eyes as wide as saucers. His permanent yellow smile still haunts my dreams. Sometimes. Let's begin.
Many people know about Jax. For starters, he from my perspective is a not so well liked character. Jax first made his appearance in the first episode of TADC; he's the self proclaimed "funny one" of the circus, troop, often causing mischief and chaos among the six central characters. Many people have grown to dislike Jax's character because of his harsh tone towards everyone in the circus, primarily towards Gangle, a theater mask with a red ribbon for a body, and who of which used to work as a fast food restaurant manager and part-time manga illustrator. Now, I would like to mainly discuss the events that occur in Episode 9, "Remember", which released on June 19th, 2026 at 6:00 PM EST.
In the previous episode, the circus, troop members have the opportunity to go home. They are introduced to a mannequin and PC named Ming, who reveals to have the ability to help them all get home. While everyone is skeptical, everyone pitches in in hopes of being able to escape through some sort of exit. In the end, it was a ploy set up by Caine, in a poor attempt that is played off as a "adventure", a common theme within this series that involves everyone going on extravagant trips and adventures across different worlds and planes that Caine has personally designed. Following this episode, Caine lashes out, seemingly appearing that he will destroy the main frame of the circus in an attempt to torture the circus, troop members into attending more of his adventures. Kinger, a king chess piece, is revealed to be one of the developers of the program in which the circus is set in, runs a line of code, and appears to accidentally delete Caine from the circus.
With no one to control the circus going into the finale, everyone has appeared to lose hope, many, if not all of them be believing that there was no real way of escaping the circus. Jax lashes out at Kinger for deleting Caine in the first place. Ragatha, a humanoid doll (reminiscent of the Raggedy Ann dolls) tries to alleviate the situation by trying to calm them down. Gangle breaks down and walks away. Now, while everyone is in a moment of despair, I feel that it is important to reiterate the fact that there was a previous episode--Ep. 7--in which the circus troop members believed they could go home by pushing a button. Because of the fact that Jax rushes through to press the blue button--which indicated them to stay in the circus--caused everyone to freak out. This pivotal moment was followed by a panic attack, led by Jax himself. Many viewers have complained that Jax ruined their only way of getting home.
I would now like to get into the meat of this finale.
This finale is particularly focusing on the dilemma that they are unable to go home. Some parts of the circus have been damaged due to Caine lashing out and smashing things, so everyone--Kinger, Pomni (the jester), Zooble (the mix of different colorful parts), Gangle, and Ragatha all begin to pitch in building different parts to patch up the different holes on the ground. Jax, after lurking in the nearby shadows, decides to go over to the group, but does not say anything. His last words were "Nevermind, forget it". This is interesting considering the fact that the name of the episode is "remember". Some Russian fans on X/Twitter have revealed that Pomni's name means "remember" in Russian. (I promise this is important).
Exactly a few seconds to a minute later, the abrupt realization flashes on screen: Jax has abstracted. The creator of TADC, Gooseworx, has alluded to the fact that abstraction in this series is closer to the idea of suicide. Abstraction typically happens when a character has "lost their mind", which is something similar Kinger says in the beginning of the series. Zooble, Pomni, and Ragatha try to think of how to contain Jax.
The bulk of this finale focuses primarily on the moments that lead up to Jax's abstraction, as well as revealing how he feels about the other members of the circus, and even his past relationship with Ribbit--an anthropomorphic frog--and Kaufmo, a clown. Within a few flashbacks, it is revealed that Jax's first friends were Ribbit and Kaufmo, however he developed a more deeper connection with Ribbit.
In the main flashback/recollection, Jax opens up with a personal story: Jax is homeless, however, prior to this, Jax had a mother and a father. While the details of their relationship is not explicitly gone into, the mother and the father had a divorce before Jax entered high school. Jax states that the relationship between Jax and Jax's father was not great. Jax's father often did not seem to care about Jax, and was also described to be "was there... but also not… really?". After the split, Jax tried to build a relationship with Jax's mother, however, the mother would also have a flawed perception of him. Jax says, and I quote:
"When I showed weakness, I was less of a man than him. When I lashed out, I was just as bad as him. It was confusing. It was like she missed him, but she also hated him".
Jax has shown throughout the series to care little of the circus members, but most importantly seems to also have a flawed idea of themself. Jax often shoves people away from getting too close. The reason Jax does this is because Jax experienced this by their mother:
"One...stupid day, I was just kind of fed up with it. I told her something I regret telling her. Something deep and personal that I thought would get her off my back. But... she laughed at me. Then she went off on me, and it didn't stop; personal, degrading insults that felt like it went on forever. And despite all that... she hugged me".
I want to particularly focus on this passage here. There have been a few instances within this series that Jax disapproves of the idea of being ridiculed or being the butt of someone's joke. The first instance is in Episode 5, "Untitled". There is a particular scene where all of the circus members played baseball, and thanks to a 3/5 vote--excluding Pomni and Jax, Jax is put into a maid uniform. Jax becomes seemingly annoyed and possibly uncomfortable. One could assume that this particular moment might not be the entirety of Jax's character, but I do find it interesting that Jax, one of the few characters in the circus that wears a somewhat gender ambiguous outfit is suddenly put into a very feminine presenting outfit. The second instance in which this feeling of "embarrassment" happens is in Episode 6, "They All Get Guns". This happens during a random game, when Caine gives every character a gun to essentially fight to the death. After the supposed victory of Jax and Pomni, Pomni becomes excited and hugs Jax. Jax smiles for a moment before a look of shock or even discussed crosses their face. Jax adamantly shoves Pomni. I immediately assumed watching this scene that Jax does not appear to like affection, or at least has a poor relationship with it. Fast-forward to episode nine, it's clear that the reason why Jax does not appear to like hugs is because the last time Jax was hugged, it ended in Jax believing they had killed their mother.
thinking about Jax's character, I firmly believe Jax is a victim of avoidant attachment disorder. It is usually characterized by a lack of childhood love and/or support, leading to the individual be believing that they are unworthy of affection or love or support. This feels on par considering that Jax explains that their father had a negative outlook on Jax, and the mother did not seem to care about them either. While it was not explicitly told what the "deep and personal" thing that Jax told their mother about, it is heavily implied that it may have something to do with Jax being trans. A few episodes ago, it was revealed that Jax's bedroom is mostly pink with pastel colors, and appears to be childlike in nature. I like to think that the reason for this design is either because of Jax's childlike demeanor with his pranks and jokes, or if it is directly a reference to something that happened in their childhood. The color theme of their bedroom also seems to be very reminiscent of the transgender flag, which features the colors, pink, blue, and white. This also possibly could all lie to the fact of Jax experiencing transness in their childhood, or there was a desire to be trans growing up.
Throughout this post, I am trying a little bit to avoid using specific pronouns as Jax has gone by his/him pronouns, but given the symbolism in this series, I cannot tell if Jax is a trans man, or if Jax is a trans woman (or perhaps even trans-fem), but given the fact that their room feels very girly in nature, the joy Jax seems to feel when rabbit puts a bow on their ear, and even calling the maid costume "ironic" feels more like Jax may be transfem with internalized transphobia towards themself. Sidenote--I firmly believe that it is 100% normal and totally OK to identify as transgender and use pronouns that don't necessarily align with your gender. You can be a transwoman and use he/him pronouns. You can be a trans man and use she/her. Pronouns are not the defining marker of a gender. So if you get confused as to why there is a lack of pronouns in this post, I'm just trying not to be disrespectful by accident or on purpose!
Based on many things I have been reading, primarily on X/Twitter about the finale of TADC, I'm seeing a lot of negative comments towards Jax and their supposed revelation of being trans. Don't get me wrong, Jax has done, terrible and irrefutable things towards everyone, especially Gangle and Ragatha, but the most common thing I am seeing is that many people believe that because of the fact that Jax is "an abuser" and "A horrible person", Jax "isn't allowed to be trans", followed by people relieved that Jax is "dead".
First and foremost, you can be trans, and you can also be horrible person. If you know someone that is trans and is equally a horrible individual, that does not give you the right to miss gender them, an attempt to "take away their trans rights", or make it seem as if they're not allowed to be trans simply because they are a horrible person. That's not how that works. Secondly, I see way too many people focusing on celebrating the death of Jax rather than trans representation. I completely and totally understand not wanting a bad person within a community, but not everyone within a community is a good person. I am saying this as a trans person myself. Yes, I am happy that we have another transgender character in popular media. Yes, I am disappointed that Jax's actions directly led to several characters suicides, and/or characters becoming volatile. No, I will absolutely not accept transphobia towards Jax simply because of the fact that he has done wrong. I also believe that I do not think Jax was redeemed, and rightfully so. When you do something wrong, you are directly responsible for the consequences that follow, and the consequences that followed, obviously were the abstraction of Ribbit and Kaufmo, Gangle becoming upset, and many people feeling isolated when they tried to reach out to Jax.
Lastly, I saw a person also say that Jax was "surrounded by supportive and friendly people who wanted to help [Jax] but instead abuses them and harasses them and leads them to abstraction". I firmly believe that apart from the separation of Jax's parents, Jax has also opened up about the fact that both of their parents have not shown any signs of caring about Jax. When you go through life believing that people don't care about you, and they consistently do that, it messes you up and it makes it feel like you're unable to be vulnerable with anyone because you HAD no one to be vulnerable with in the first place. This is where the "avoidant attachment" issue comes into play.
This graphic is just one example, but avoided attachment is a real thing, and I highly believe this is what Jax was doing. Because of the lack of support Jax received from Jax's parents, Jax most likely was already in a very different mental state when trying to talk with their mother. Because the mother's first reaction was to lash out and call Jax names and insults before embracing Jax, Jax most likely put themselves in a position where they felt as if the hug wasn't real, or that the love wasn't genuine. Because of that, Jax began to push everyone away, leading to many people be believing that their relationship with Jax was toxic, volatile, "not real", thus leading to two abstractions. I am absolutely not excusing the abuse Jax had towards Gangle and Ragatha but to make it seem like Jax is and forever will always be one horrible person, and not understanding the bigger picture of everything feels like a lot of of the opinions towards Jax are a little shallow.
Personally, the ending for me was impeccable. First time I've cried in a while, especially for a movie or a TV show. I think the fate of Jax was very suitable, and I felt like as self-destructive Jax was, Jax realize that in their dying moments, understanding the people that were hurt, leading to Jax's own abstraction. What I will say to that one person: making it seem like people "have" to be kind to people that are nice to them, especially when they are in a volatile emotional state feels tone deaf. Jax felt vulnerable, and often put up a front to protect themselves from having to open up with other people as we've seen in both the flashback and in the present. Sure, the other characters don't know that, but it's not always easy opening up to other people. And no, don't give me that "You're just excusing his abusive actions!" Nope, I'm giving it context. There's a difference. It would make it seem like I'm excusing the abusive actions if I said something like "Jax abused these character because of ______ and it's OK that Jax did that because of this reason". Jax abused these characters because of _____, and as a result, acted like _____. We should also acknowledge that while Jax is a "bad person", you have to look outside of the "what" and answer the "why". This is PSYC 101. Finally, Jax is 100% allowed to be trans. If you've made it this far, and you don't know why I'm saying this, scroll up like two paragraphs. You do not get to choose who to be transphobia towards, fictional character or not. You can also equally acknowledge that this character has done a lot of wrong things.
That's all for now! This was a horribly long post, but if I didn't care, I wouldn't make it this long. Hope y'all don't mind reading. See you on the next post...
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