you condone jacks actions…??
yes. i'll clarify my position even more just in case you did read the tags in my post about Jack but you're still confused.
in episode 1, it's revealed that Jack is competitive, intense, and eager to try and win Inanimate Insanity. this is his personality, a fine one for a reality show contestant. in episode 2, Jack approaches the challenge Fan set with a certain strategy in mind. Fan said that to win the challenge, everyone must figure out what word you have picked for yourself without you ever saying that word. Jack chooses a relatively unique but familiar word (knuckles), then does an action that corresponds with that word (cracking his knuckles) for every contestant he meets. Fan walks up to him and asks if he's nervous, and Jack explains that this is his strategy. never at any point has Fan said Jack CAN'T do this, or that it's against the rules. once again, Jack is a competitive character, and it only makes sense that he is trying to win. this is his goal, and he was clearly programmed with it very strongly.
once the challenge is over, Jack wins the challenge. his strategy was simple and successful. Fan is upset with this, because Jack didn't play the way he wanted him to (again, Fan NEVER said Jack literally couldn't do this—it's just Fan reacting emotionally, annoyed that Jack didn't go along with his implication that he's "doing the challenge wrong" at the table earlier). so, Fan changes the challenge at the last second, SPECIFICALLY to make it so Jack can't win. that's not very fair of him. he did NOT state that this would happen in the challenge, misleading ALL of the contestants just to one-up a single guy. but he does it anyway, arguing that Jack misunderstood the challenge and that he was supposed to follow it the way Fan vaguely expected him to, not to surprise him or make any different choices on his own. this is very controlling behavior from Fan. he is made insecure by Jack's strategy, even though it's an innocent, harmless way to try and win the challenge in a creative way, BECAUSE it's not what Fan PERSONALLY WANTED from him. there were no rules against what Jack did, but Fan randomly decided to change the challenge results at the last second JUST to stop Jack from winning.
naturally, Jack is upset. he's up for elimination. this is another thing that Fan introduces on the spot with zero planning, chosen specifically because he wants to "punish" Jack for his insubordinate behavior. very controlling, very unfair, very immature. we know that this was unplanned, because the elimination area has been hastily set up, in addition to a janky point system for eliminated contestants (i recommend reading this to see why exactly this point system is a problem and clearly not well thought-out by Fan and Test Tube).
Jack is eliminated. there's a range of emotions he expresses in this scene: horror, anger, sadness, hopelessness, shame, confusion, etc. earlier, i said that winning Inanimate Insanity is clearly STRONGLY programmed into Jack. this makes being the first contestant eliminated all that more bitter. he argues that he never got a chance really, and then looks for comfort from Teddy Bear, which isn't given (i don't think she should or should not have given him comfort here. i don't care about that. im pointing out that he Looked for comfort from someone he already knew, showing that he felt helpless and vulnerable and ashamed). Jack expresses feeling like an afterthought—thrown away at his first chance to be ANYONE at all. Fan explains the point system to him. Jack is still upset, the shame of having lost feeling 10x worse now that Fan has put him into a sort of Pity Bracket for people who Lost. Jack feels put down, and he is hurt, embarrassed, and angry. Paper tries to calm him down, sympathizing with him. this actually helps (you can see Jack's expression soften). however, Fan decides to patronize Jack again, telling him he can't learn without stakes and acting as if Jack is being immature and babyish just for reacting with emotion.
Fan's words are the last straw. all of the feelings swirling in Jack's head are exacerbated as he feels mocked and shamed for expressing pain and getting upset by being tricked into losing (since the competition rules changed and eliminations got added). this turns into a burst of rage, and he throws the pager WITHOUT targeting it at anyone, but it coincidentally hits Bot and knocks down Test Tube.
so let's review. at the absolute height of his emotions, after being tricked, mocked, and shamed, Jack finally has an outburst. it amounts to... throwing something he's holding. that's it. those are his "violent tendencies". have you ever gotten angry at a video game and thrown the controller onto the couch? it's basically the same as that. ONLY BY COINCIDENCE does Jack hit Bot, which he says himself was an accident. he has no intent at all when throwing the pager; he is just at his limit and reacts instinctually.
another example: an autistic person having a meltdown. would you get angry and aggressively blame them for screaming when they're in the midst of extreme sensory overload? no. but what if that screaming coincidentally hurts someone with PTSD who is triggered by screaming? is it fair to get angry at the autistic person then? no. both of them are in uncontrollable distress, and getting angry at someone for distress they can't control is not fair. to fix this situation, you work with the people involved to try and avoid this in the future (e.g. looking for a rumble stage in the autistic person to try and prevent a meltdown, providing noise-canceling headphones for the person with PTSD, etc.). no one is at fault. it was just an unfortunate situation.
Jack throws a pager after being bullied enough for him to no longer be able to control his behavior from the sheer pain he's in. unfortunately, it hits someone. he tries to explain himself. he is denied and proclaimed aggressive and malicious by people who already don't like him. in episode 3, he is dragged around in handcuffs despite repeatedly saying that he was not trying to hurt anyone on purpose. he is punished when he is honest and he is punished when he tries to appeal to the people around him. NOTHING he can do is "right", he is only bullied even more. he is treated in some ways like an actual prisoner, abused and mocked. i would assume i don't have to say the north american justice system is Bad, but apparently a lot of people in the osc think it's good. so straight up: It Is Bad To Abuse People. prisons are horrible places. being unnecessarily and forcibly physically restrained by authorities is something that happens in real life, and it is traumatizing. Jack should not be receiving this abusive treatment due to a mistake that didn't even amount to anything, which was only committed after he was provoked over and over and over again. Fan has WAY too much control over what happens to Jack, and he uses this power to hurt Jack even more, just because he doesn't like him. that is not fair.
so. yes, i condone Jack's actions. in this context, condoning means that i think they were reasonable, understandable, fair actions to take. Jack was being treated very unfairly in e2, then bullied to the point he couldn't take it anymore. his angry reaction was therefore reasonable (he was provoked and pushed around and tricked), understandable (he was at the height of negative emotions, feeling ashamed and insecure), and fair (he reacted without control, NOT intending to hurt anyone at all, just throwing something he was holding).
continuing with episode 3, Jack realizes pretty early on that the odds are stacked against him. he tries his very best to appeal to the people in power in little nuanced ways, Exactly as Fan wanted from him in episode 2 (Fan was upset at Jack for not picking up on his vaguely implied expectations for the challenge in episode 2, so Jack tries to work with that in episode 3). he is put down and mocked for his efforts. for example, he tries to help circumspect and says it's because they're down a member. he is mocked for this even though he is trying to follow Fan's invisible rules. if he was honest, saying that he wants to help them because they won the challenge, they'd be angry at him for "proving" that he's heartless or whatever. so no matter what he says here, he's doomed to be hated by the people who have power over him in the game (and his entire life's autonomy, apparently, as they're allowed to just put him in cuffs at will).
once again, i condone Jack's behavior in episode 3. he was doing the absolute best he could in a very unfair situation where anything he said was used as fuel against him. YES, some of what he does is manipulation, and i fully think it is the best thing to do here. being honest would certainly make people angry at him, so telling a white lie was his attempt at trying to gain SOME goodwill. again, he Shouldn't be treated like this. what he did was an accident, and yet everyone is treating it as an Aggressive premeditated first degree murder attempt. why SHOULDN'T he try to get on people's good side now that they're so determined to see him as Evil?
tl;dr
you may have noticed this post is kind of long! that is because i have tried to explain the entire situation slowly and clearly, reiterating certain information and showing exactly where it connects and why i believe this (condoning Jack's actions). so i recommend reading the full post.
but if you don't, for any reason, i basically said that Jack's situation is extremely unfair; he is doing his best when people are heavily biased against him; and him throwing the pager was an instinctual expression of emotions after being relentlessly shamed by Fan, not an aggressive attempt at murder. i think everything Jack has done so far is reasonable and fair. i condone his actions. they are completely understandable and NONE of them are intended to Hurt, rather to defend.
