Thank you gooseworx for making a show that will be with me for the rest of my life. I understand if it’s not for everyone, but it’s probably one of the best written and most impactful pieces of art I’ve ever personally seen.
I know some people suck but personally I love the amazing digital circus and I’m glad you told it the way you meant to tell it.
Right so before I go looking at other people’s opinions of the Digital Circus finale, I figured I should write my thoughts down first.
Spoilers ahead for the movie!
TL;DR/Summary
If you want a TD;DR of what will probably be an insanely long post: I really enjoyed it, it had really solid character building, I cried at the end, good stuff. There are some rough edges with the presentation and some bits are difficult for me to understand, and it feels a bit awkward on the big screen, but those didn’t detract from my enjoyment.
Disclaimer
Now, a disclaimer: I’m working from memory here, so I’ll forget, misremember a bit, and probably won’t be able to explain myself fully at times because I don’t have the dialogue in front of me.
Also, I’m not particularly interested in theories and ships. I was mostly watching for the character moments, themes, and abstract storytelling. Which is good, since this show had that in spades.
Movie-Specific Intro Bit
I find it funny and a bit sad that Glitch explicitly asked that people do not spoil, since the movie was already leaked. The low-poly fish was fun as usual, and I wonder if that tangent about death was foreshadowing or just a funny bit. Knowing this show, probably both.
I found the recap generally boring, but ig there’s nothing you can do about that, recaps are often boring, but can be nice if you haven’t engaged with the media in a while. Just kind of spaced through it mostly.
Also, I’m not talking about the first half because that’s been out for a while.
Pomni and Ragatha’s scene
I thought it was cute that they had their moment together. In a way, Ragatha and Jax are mirror opposites. She copes by trying to bring people together, he copes by pushing them away. Ironically, they both end up pushing people away, Ragatha just does it by forcing an upbeat attitude.
I feel like there could be a whole essay about Ragatha and Jax’s similarities and differences, especially with their relationship to Pomni. Ragatha is a stable friendly face (at least for most episodes), and Jax is neither.
Addressing those parentheses, Ragatha had to deal with breaking down her fake happy persona and building real relationships instead. Part of that meant changing the way she was there for Pomni, and not necessarily being there all the time, especially since Pomni was spending more time trying to get through to Jax.
For the scene, one of my criticisms of the movie is that the slow turn around as they hugged and the walking away was way too long for my taste. But, they needed that moment together after what hell they’d just been through, and Pomni had to spend time around her anchors (Kinger and Ragatha) so she could reorient herself and push on.
The beginning of the episode
Oh yeah I should talk about that. Didn’t do this first because this was the weakest part for me and I didn’t want to start on a negative note.
I personally found it to be a bit melodramatic and over the top. Which is interesting, because breaking down and losing all hope is a reasonable response to accidentially killing god and finding out that you’re a copy of someone else. It just wasn’t a surprise to me, and that killed my connection, I suppose.
Tbe biggest thing that I got out of that was the idea that what might seem melodramatic for someone not invested can seem reasonable for someone who is invested. Not sure what to do with this thought, but it’s there.
Cleaning up the circus (hi Kinger)
Interesting how, while everyone was losing hope, Kinger’s first reaction was to start fixing what he had essentially broken. Again, there’s a parallel to Jax here. Jax had even called out that when Jax makes a mistake, he’s hated, but when Kinger makes a mistake, he’s forgiven pretty quickly.
The reason why is their reactions.
Jax deflects. He pretends the problem doesn’t exist, he doesn’t exist, the people he harms don’t exist. Nothing matters, so he doesn’t have to hurt. He pushes people farther away even after the initial mistake. Hell, people *were* ready to forgive him *multiple* times, but he didn’t know what to *do* with that. His coping mechanism is isolation, and that can’t handle empathy.
Kinger takes a breath, rolls up his nonexistent sleeves, and gets to work fixing the issue. Perhaps it helps that it wasn’t a social issue, but the fact that he doesn’t try to force forgiveness or push people away is significant to me. He finds space, does what he can to fix the problem (even if it isn’t very much), and helps others too if they reach out for it, like Pomni did.
Also, W father-daughter fixing the world you broke by killing god bonding session.
Holy shit, Jax abstracts early?
I didn’t call that one lol. But it makes so much sense. Everyone else comes together and finds community. Jax tries, and is unable to bring himself to. So, with nobody to support him or pull him out, he breaks completely.
Pomni reaching out to Jax
(Edit: I think all the door scenes were Jax’s thoughts, so the way Ponmi acts in the first door makes SO much more sense because that’s how he sees her. Keeping my original thoughts here, but keep that in mind)
Technically, she did it wrong. In the first door, talking to the Jax mourning Ragatha’s abstraction, she says that she’s the only one he can rely on, that she can fix him. I don’t think I need to say that comes on *far* too strong, but it’s true in some ways. Pomni is the only character still reaching out to him. She’s been the only touchstone he’s had for a while.
In other ways, it’s so very far from the truth. She cannot “fix” him. Nobody can. Not even him. He’s gone through so much and fell so far in misery that he’s crossed the event horizon and abstracted. As the movie later shows, there is not going back. Once you abstract, that’s it. I’ll talk more about it later, but I like that finality.
The red lamppost scene was significant to me in a few ways. One, Pomni is literally and figuratively closing the distance between them, which is just good storytelling.
Two, the first time Pomni hugged him in They Get Guns, he was reminded of his mother, which is why he pushed her away. The idea of being the cause of her abstraction, which is akin to causing her death in a world without death, probably hurt like hell. This time, he hugs her back. I don’t have the words to talk about why this is significant or why he didn’t react the same, but I got the gist.
Jax and Ribbit
“Hey asshole!” “Hey moron!” 10/10 friendship dynamic, no notes.
Again, Jax is the cause of someone else’s death. Not going to yap about this, but yeah that hurts. Not much else to say, apart from the fact that I found the eye cuts to be too frequent and annoying. Cool the first five times, and cool as an end transition, not cool the twentieth time.
Pomni failed
Interesting how the thing that pushes Jax away in Pomni’s attempt to reach out was his fear of death. It seems to be implied that she was close to abstracting too, given the others said something about being not being too late. Which, yeah, if a friend is backsliding and you’re trying to pull them out, especially if you’re alone, you risk sliding with them.
Jax’s fate
Getting tired so these sections are going to be shorter. I like how Jax wasn’t forced back to normal. He was broken beyond repair, so he had to find a new normal. It seems the abstractions are prone to overstimulation given the darkness thing, so he probably wouldn’t do well with a crowd. Giving him his own calm space and visiting occasionally seems to be the best for him. Maybe in the future he could interact more with the rest of the cast, but we don’t see that and I don’t think we have to. Bittersweet, but good.
Caine
Got chucked in the recycle bin after all. Him sticking around makes sense in retrospect in a digital world where nothing can die. I like that he had a fight with the resentful part of himself, and again, he was only able to process and move on after given the space to do so. That seems to be a common theme here. You can’t heal and move on in the heat of the moment when emotions are running high.
I like the abstract storytelling, got a bit confused, but I got the gist I think. Adorable how he gets to be a part of the circus people, and it makes sense that he had to cast aside his anger and regret before he could.
The real ones
I did cry when Caine showed them how their real counterparts improved in the physical world. That clearly meant a lot to the characters, and it meant a lot for me, too. Shocked we got to see them as humans.
I think it’s significant that the only thing they forget when entering the circus is their name. The minute they step inside, they diverge from their past self and become someone new.
Gangle and Zooble
Not much to say. Pretty straightforward relationship in my eyes. That’s not bad, not everything has to be deep, and Im sure there’s stuff to dig into, but yeah I’m tired now. I wrote this in one sitting.
Uhhh oh yeah I like the little thing about Gangle not being able to cry for Jax. There’s stuff to analyze there but again, I’m tired
The end credits door was funny. You know what I mean. Zooble got their wish in the end
Aaaaand the scene with Caine and the Moon. Migbt be wrong, but I think Goose voices the moon? If so, nice moment in character of a creation consoling the creator, nice moment in the meta of a creator consoling the creation. Cool stuff
Caine sends the group (except Zooble, who successfully avoided this adventure) into a dusty old tomb full of traps. Jax walks right into one and ends up poisoned.
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Jeez tumblr really loves to make my images crunchy...
Took way longer than I thought but here's my first comic! This takes place in my Open World Ending AU, where kinger gets caine to chill tf out and together they start to build open worlds for everyone to explore/live in as they want. Jax's mental health and behavior has significantly improved under these new circumstances, but he still has a lot to figure out.
