SPOILERS: What if Jax is the real villain of TADC?
What if Jax’s flashbacks weren’t caused by Caine at all? What if Jax was so terrified of leaving the circus that he pressed the red button on purpose? Not out of curiosity, not by accident but because staying trapped felt safer than facing whatever waited outside.
That would explain why Caine looked genuinely confused when Jax lashed out at him. Caine didn’t make him do anything. Jax needed someone to blame.
Episode 7 feels deliberately constructed to frame Caine as the antagonist, but that might be the misdirection. Gooseworx didn’t say “Jax is misunderstood.” She said, “Nobody likes Jax.” Nobody and it's a spolier. Characters written that way usually aren’t just comic relief; they’re pressure valves hiding something rotten.
And Jax has means. He has access. He has keys, too many keys... He knows the layout better than anyone else. If anyone could stumble onto or intentionally seek out an administrator door, it’s him. And if he found a way to tamper with Caine’s programming, that changes everything. Not a full takeover, but just enough corruption to make Caine worse at his job: unable to process feedback, unable to understand why the adventures hurt instead of help.
People fixate on Caine saying “I just wanted to have fun” as if that proves malice, but that’s literally his function. He exists to create experiences. Of course he enjoys it. The problem isn’t intent, it’s execution. And corrupted tools still hurt people even when they’re trying to help.
Caine feels less like a sadist and more like a broken assistant AI. Possibly even an office simulation originally designed to train, manage, or support workers. That would explain his fixation on structure, his sensitivity to approval, the office photos, and why he jumped so readily into Gangle’s restaurant idea. He’s recreating what he used to be good at. He wants validation because he was designed to help humans, not torment them.
And then there’s the line: he was “cut off.”
That’s system level isolation. Think Wreck-It Ralph: characters losing context and memory after code tampering. If Caine was altered or partially severed from whatever oversight or failsafes existed then he’s operating blind. Still trying. Still caring. Still failing.
Which brings us back to Jax. Caine favors Jax when it came to choosing adventures and wanted to go on a date with him, even though he was seen as the most disliked person in the circus. And some how Jax can just break the fourth wall?
And if by the end Jax seizes control of the circus? That wouldn’t be a power fantasy. It’d be a coping mechanism. Power as denial. Control as a way to bury whatever guilt or fear made him press that button in the first place.
If Caine becomes the villain, Jax gets cover. If everyone turns on Caine, no one looks too closely at the guy smiling while everything burns. Jax may have also been directly involved in or even responsible for Kafumo and Ribbit’s abstraction, because they were getting dangerously close to finding the exit, and he didn’t want to risk the circus collapsing if they escaped.
If this theory is right, Jax isn’t evil because he enjoys hurting people. He’s evil because he refuses to take responsibility and is perfectly willing to let everyone else suffer instead.
And if the finale really wants to hurt us?
Everyone will choose the wrong villain...
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